Hello Cybernauts!
This is Vern Tejas for the Alpine Ascents Mount Everest Expedition. Well, we have wonderful news for ya'll. Today is Buddha's Birthday. We celebrated it by visiting the Tangboshe Monastery, which is a 20 minute hike from our wonderful lodge here at the Ama Dablam Gardens.
We're in the middle of our Russian Recovery, if you will. A technique developed by the Soviets during their great forays into the mountains of the Pyrameyrs. They discovered that if you stress your body, then you need to recover and that's exactly what we're doing.
After the big stress of going to Camp III several days back, we have now dropped down valley. We're now at the Ama Dablam Garden Lodge at the base of the Tangboshe Monastery hill, at 12,143 feet above sea level.
The nice thing about being here is the rhododendrons are out in bloom, there are many animals out to amuse us, and a lot of birds for the birders in the group. There is a lot of green vegetation along with cows, ponies, deer... it's just wonderful to be down and back fully involved with life once again after being in the black and white scene of the upper mountain.
We are refilling our bodies with liquids and plate after plate of wonderful vegetables, fried rice, and momos. We also had a great experience at Tangboshe where we had homemade cinnamon rolls. [Satellite phone garbles and drops the call]
— Vern Tejas, Alpine Ascents International Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent