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Thame's a very quiet village. It was an amazing day. Gordon led the trek up, and I went way up into the mountains to about 14,500 feet to a monastery called Langdow. Very few people ever go there. The lama that's there is one of the strongest lamas. He has over 100 monasteries throughout Nepal and the world, but he only comes here about every few years.

I went up there, and did a small puja for people's expeditions and walked over to Charok and visited an old lama friend of mine who has painted many tonkas and made Mani Rimdu masks for me, and it's just an absolutely beautiful day.

We'll be doing this again in the fall, and we're looking forward to a little bit more grass growing in the fall and a little bit more snow in the mountains. But the mountains are gorgeous right now. It's very dry in the Khumbu, but things are great. Everybody's very, very healthy. Tomorrow morning we'll go up and visit the Rinpoche of Thame and do another puja and give blessings for everybody and just enjoy the views.

Lots and lots of Tibetans have come across the border in the last few days. We've probably seen about two or three hundred Tibetans come across with hundreds of yaks. They are bringing sheep, dried sheep, and salt to trade for goods of rice and things like that from down here. Actually, you get salt and stuff from down here also. They bring carpets... Amazing guys. You know they only bathe about twice in their lives. Whether it's 110° or twenty below zero, they wear the same clothing every day: big sheepskins turned inside out with the wool next to their body. They're about four inches thick. It's amazing.

The sun's setting right now. The yaks' silver bells are ringing, and we're going to head to dinner in just a few minutes. Hope everybody out there's doing great. We hope we'll see you soon. Talk to you soon. Bye.

—Todd Burleson, Trek Leader

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