Total distance cycled: 61 kms

Morning altitude: 4450 meters (14,600 feet)

Highest altitude: 5015 meters (16,500 feet)

Evening altitude: 4520 meters (14,800 feet)

We woke up around 8 and the van, our Tibetan crew, and Stan and Laurent were still gone. They pulled up a few minutes later, and Stan and Laurent were looking much better after IVs and oxygen at the hospital. We all decided that it would be better for them to go down a little bit and have some rest, so we put them on a bus to our Monday night destination, which is lower and has a hotel. So our group was down to six, and they will miss two days of riding.

Our ride today was relatively easy (despite going over our first 5000 meter pass), but what had us all concerned was that we were scheduled to sleep even higher than we were now, and we were all feeling the effects already. We rode together at a very, very easy pace all morning. The scenery was spectacular. We rode the length of that beautiful blue lake, then started following a small river up into some serious snow-capped mountains. We steadily gained elevation but so slowly that it wasn't noticable. After lunch it got steeper. I figured out the key to this high altitude business is to move very slowly and deliberately. Spin those pedals easily, don't breath hard, don't stress. We got to our planned campsite by 2:30, and it was up higher than yesterday's pass. Our guide told us that we were only a few kilometers from the summit, and we were all feeling good after our slow morning, so we decided to press on, cross the pass, and camp at a lower altitude on the other side.

It has started raining lightly after lunch, so we all donned our rain jackets. We rode steadily up a not very steep road to our first 5000 meter pass. It was cold, windy, foggy, and rainy up at the top. The air was very thin, but I found that easy, steady pedalling worked well. I was the first over the top, stopped at the van to don more warm clothes, and headed down. (We had decided that one reason that Stan and I suffered yesterday was that we hung around at the summit for so long.) Just over the top is a viewing area to see the magnificent Nojin-kangtsang glacier. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a view for us due to the weather, which by now was truly awful. What was a light rain turned into a very heavy, cold, driving rain. I immediately regretted not taking a hat and long fingered gloves, but I certainly wasn't going to climb back up to get them! I raced down the other side, alternating hands in my pocket, trying to stay warm while soaking wet at 50 km/hr. But it was amazing how much richer the air felt as I decended. After just 1000 feet the air seemed thick and rich. I was pedalling hard with no altitude effects trying to stay warm.

We got ahead of the storm a bit and the rain subsided. The van had pulled off into our camping area and I pulled in right behind them. I grabbed my tent, put it up, got all my stuff inside, and changed clothes before the storm caught us to up again and it started pouring. But warm and dry in my tent I was happy. No altitude effects at all this afternoon, which is a nice change from yesterday when I was truly miserable.

Our camp area was beautiful--right along a perky little river and in the shadow of the huge pass we had just come over. We did't do much but hang out in our tents, and we were in bed very early. Always when we camp, the locals come into our campsite and hang around and stare. They seem to come from nowhere, and have no problem standing or squatting directly in front of our tent opening and just staring at us, of fifteen minutes at a time! The cute little boys to the left were just such visitors. The picture is taken from inside my tent.

Pictures: perky me, feeling much better today, the river valley we went up, the magnifient glacier lost in the clouds, the elevation profile, which wasn't as hard as it looks, me rolling up the pass, and the storm catching up to our campsite.