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We had breakfast in Lhakpa Rita's house, and then headed up to the Thame Monastery which is about a 45 minute walk straight uphill, which is a beautiful monastery about 350 years old. The main head of the monastery, or the Rinpoche, wasn't there, but there's a famous painter who was there, and the whole front and the inside of the monastery is being repainted. These are done in mostly Buddhist tonkas, which are gods and demons, or incarnations of the Buddha. So it's quite beautiful.

And on the walk up, there was a new monastery stupa for Lhakpa's Uncle, which is a shrine—he was killed in an accident—so that was nice to see. And on the way back down, we saw a bunch of yak herders from Tibet that had come across the pass and were bringing goods to sell. So it was interesting to see how they basically set up their mobile, nomadic lifestyles.

Inside the monastery, we all received a nice blessing, then headed out on a big walk today back toward Namche, then above Namche to the village of Khunde. So it was quite nice, a moderate walk through pine forests with a big hill at the end as always.

We're camped out in pretty clear weather. We've had nice views of Ama Dablam for most of the way. That's pretty much it. It was the first of the many long days of walking that we have so, a good taste of things to come. Hope everybody is well over there and hope many of you can join us on our Everest Trek this fall. Thanks a lot and we'll speak to you tomorrow.

—Gordon Janow, Trek Leader

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