Everybody got up nice and early today even though it was technically a "rest" day. The Sherpas aren't so into rest at this stage of a trip though, these altitudes are still lower than their home villages. So they took the trucks on ahead to Tingri, which will be our next stop on the Tibetan Plateau. That is about five hours ride from here and a little higher (everything in this neck of the woods is a little higher). It made good sense for us low-landers to spend a day acclimatizing to Nyalam's 12,000 feet. Shortly after breakfast, we all took to the hills in twos and threes to stretch our legs and lungs.

In a perfect world, when somebody is headed out on a big climbing trip, they get to workout and exercise in a perfectly planned program that has them in peak condition the day before they get on the big ole' jet airliner. Then, of course, they'd get to ride a stationary bike or work a Stairmaster on the long flight over. In the Kathmandu of perfection, that climber would go running in the hills around town and do push-ups (one-arm... Rocky style) on the steps of the King's palace. In the real world, the big-mountain climber has done a heck of a lot in the weeks before leaving on a ten week trip, but that has likely had more to do with working like an animal to make leaving possible. And the only real exercise that climber gets on the plane is when his or her neck snaps upright over and over just as sleep approaches.

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Haven't met too many folks who have had time to exercise in Kathmandu either, with a big trip building steam. Few climbers would want that air getting in their lungs any more than it has to. One-arm push-ups... No. So weeks go by without exercise on the way into one of these trips. That is why everyone was so excited today about a chance to get out in the fresh snow and clean air on hills that go up forever.

The excitement has to be tempered by knowledge that overdoing the workout at this stage of things is a well-documented dumb thing to do. We only went up a few thousand feet. Enough to see big sharp mountains in every direction, enough to see some Hawks playing in the wind, enough to get chased back down to town by a playful snowstorm. It kept snowing through the rest of the day, but that didn't bother us much since we were doing the afternoon sleep, chat, and read program. If the road is OK tomorrow, we'll go to Tingri, if it isn't, we'll go walking higher right here.

—Dave Hahn, Climber

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