Gokyo, Day 10: Hike to the fourth and fifth lakes

April 8th, 2019

The Fourth Lake (16,260 ft) from Gokyo (15,744 ft)

We woke up to the clear day, with a sigh of relief, I looked out the window while sipping a hot cup of coffee. Babu said we will be able to trek to the fourth and the fifth lakes as planned. Everyone woke up fresh and got ready for another adventurous day at the Himalaya.

we started walking at 9 am, the route was almost flat with a gradual uphill slope. This was a fun walk, there was a lot of snow, we stopped a lot for photos and for playing in the snow.

We reached the frozen fourth lake in about an hour and a half. It started snowing now, Hema decided to go back with Gokarna, our porter.

The rest of us continued walking towards the fifth lake. Thick clouds started rolling in with increasing snowstorms. We walked for two more hours. With the fifth lake being 10 minutes closer, we had to make a decision to turn around, because increasing blizzard with high winds.

We had three-hour trek back to the lodge, we kept walking back, The snow was hitting straight to ur faces this time, which was making it hard to walk. The trail started getting slippery, this was a true Himalayan adventure. We made it back to the lodge at 4 pm. We all were cold and were shivering, Kalpu got hypothermia due to cold weather. We all gathered around a fireplace to warm up and sipped hot tea. We had a late lunch/early dinner. No one wanted another meal- an actual dinner. we all were tired and went to bed.

I was thinking about Dharmesh and Arnav and how they would be managing being in a tent in this blizzard at the Island Peak Base Camp. I prayed for better weather the next day for them to be able to attempt to the summit.