April 10: Good morning from the village of Deboche! It is a crisp cold morning up here at over 12,000 ft in the Khumbu Valley as we wake to the sun hitting the high peaks that surround us. Mount Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, and Ama Dablam are framed out the dining room window of the Rivendell Lodge where we spent last night. It’s one of the nicest lodges in the region and always a pleasure to spend a night here on our trek.

Yesterday we got up to another perfect day and left the village of Namche heading up the valley to the Tengboche Monastery. The Tengboche Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery perched high on a ridge in the upper Khumbu valley. It was originally built in 1916, and has been rebuilt a couple of times after fire and earthquake damage, but is a beautiful historic structure and important to the local Sherpa communities. We were able to go inside the monastery and listen to some of the local monks in their prayers, which is always a special experience.

Our team is doing great, although we’ve had some of the usual stomach upsets typical to travelling in Nepal. This morning we’ll head up through Rhododendron forests up the valley to the village of Pangboche where we will visit Lama Geshe and receive his blessing for our expedition. We’ll continue up to the village of Dingboche where we’ll spend the next two nights.

We’ll be checking in tomorrow from the village of Dingboche!