(Picture: On summit ridge)

Greetings from Nyalam!

We are now at 3,655m and will be here for 2 nights until we move on to Tingri, the last ‘town’ before we finally arrive at Cho Oyu’s Advanced Base Camp. We set off at 4am this morning from Zhangmu to Nyalam on two hardy 4-wheel drives. As the road leading to Nyalam is currently under construction and it has been raining nonstop for the past few days, the going was super bumpy and muddy and it was quite a difficult 3-hr ride (with all heads knocking against every possible surface!). If anyone of us are suffering from headaches at this moment, it would be caused by all that bumping instead of Acute Mountain Sickness!). We finally reached Nyalam at about 7am feeling relieved that we could finally get a good rest.

Moving up during our acclimatization climb

In the afternoon, we did a short acclimatization hike up a ridge till about 3,985m to get our bodies adjusted to the higher altitude and lower pressure. Active acclimatization allows the body to produce more red blood cells in response to a controlled amount of physical exertion, resulting in quicker and better adjustment to higher altitude.

Dinner beckons!