We had our day 8 (of 14) rest day today, more restful for some than others. I did not have much down time nor did I find time for a much desired shower, but perhaps tomorrow. After all, it’s only been about 9 days since my last shower so there’s no real urgency.

Part of our day spent taking some group photos. We did get a fairly good instructor photo but the large group photo I was hoping for fell short as somehow the message to students to show up at 10 did not get adequately conveyed or perhaps it was ignored.

Universities have no corner on the endless meeting market. The local KCC committee had a 3+ hour meeting this afternoon. The bulk of the meeting was in Nepali but the important parts were translated for me. Despite the length of the meeting I felt that it was positive, productive, and time well spent. It’s clear to me that the Phortse locals as well as all the Nepali instructors feel strongly about the quality and future of KCC. I found the dedication and commitment of the group to be very rewarding and positive.

Yesterday afternoon, old Karma was outside with a group of us enjoying the sunshine. He picked up an ice axe that was nearby and proceeded to contort himself into various crazy poses with the ice axe, clearly poking fun at the silly abstractness that ice climbing must appear to be for him. It really was pretty hilarious seeing this 83 yr old yak herder laughing at the absurdity of what we do.

One weather forecast we heard calls for 2-3 feet of snow over the next 36 hours. Another forecast calls for 2-3 inches. We’ll see what materializes. Both forecasts predict colder temps and so far that part is certainly true. It’s been a cloudy, cold day and my toes have been mostly numb for the past 7 hours. At least they’ll warm up in my sleeping bag at bedtime about 4 hours from now.

All the best,

Steve