Total distance cycled: 80 kms

Morning altitude: 4165 meters (13,600 feet)

Highest altitude: 4900 meters (16,000 feet)

Evening altitude: 4900 (16,000 feet)

I had the best night's sleep camping so far last night. We are putting our bodies under a lot of stress but we are getting a lot of sleep, which is important. We are in bed shortly after dark (around 9pm) and sleep until first light (just before 8am). It rained most of the night but stopped in time for our tents to dry out in the morning--a good thing! We packed up and were on the road by 9:30.

We rolled along a beautiful valley towards our first obstacle of the day: the Yulong La pass (4520 meters/14,829 feet). It wasn't terribly steep and wasn't terribly long, but was a significant effort nonetheless. We had another day of perfect cycling weather which helped. We all got over the top with no problems and were rewarded with a really fun, long decent. Then we had our usual roadside picnic lunch, prepared last night by our cook. Today was Yak cheese, tibetan flat bread, yak yoguert, an apple, and some roasted potatoes. Back on the road we rolled through the remote and far-West like town of Lhatse, before starting up the formidable Lhakpa La pass. Since Lhatse was 'only' at 4000 meters/13,000 feet, we wanted to climb higher before spending the night to help our acclimatization--ideally about 4400 meters/14,400 feet.

The climb was beautiful, up a gorge-like river basin, but was relentless and at times quite steep. We had already climbed an almost 15,000 ft pass this morning, so were all getting tired. The van rolled ahead looking for a campsite as we were strung out on the road below. Unfortunately, because we were in a gorge, our guides didn't find a suitable site until 4900 meters/16,000 feet, which was not only too high but made for a very long, hard day. (Doctors recommend no more than 400 meters/1000 feet gain in sleeping elevation per day.)

I was first up to the campsite as the guides were putting up the tents. I was beat after the long climb in the thin air, so I knew that some of the others would be really struggling. Plus, we had come much farther and higher than we had bargained for, which I knew would be a morale issue. I told the guides to stop work on the tents and to take the van back down to check on everyone, tell them how far they still had to go, and see if they needed a ride. The guides really didn't want to do that--they wanted to get the tents up. But I told them I would do the tents and insisted that they go down in the van. We were not far from a town and by this time quite a crowd of kids had gathered. So I rounded them up and they were more than happy to help. I had a lot of fun organizing the tent pitch detail! And it was a good thing that the van came back down. My predictions of morale issues and fatigue were right on the money.

Laurent was in altitude trouble again this evening with a terrible debilitating headache. We put him on oxygen and had a conference every hour or so to see if we would have to bring him down. He ended up making it through the night.

Jean-Pierre, Annie, Didier, and I went for a walk through the village after dinner. It is shocking to see how poor and dirty the people here are, and what kind of life they have up here at 16,000 feet--just about the limit of permanent human settlement.

Pictures below, left column, then right: Looking down from the top of the first pass. Tibetan passes are always wonderfully decked out with prayer flags. Starting up the gorge to the second pass. The wild west town of Lhatse. Didier gets stuck in traffic. Members of my tent pitch detail take a break.