Day 7: We were supposed to camp a night at Lobuche (5030m) but blessed with good health and fitness, we arrived earlier so we trekked on further to reach an interesting Pyramid here - the EvK2 Research centre (5050m).
https://www.facebook.com/lin.guoyao/videos/10159182242307306/?t=0

This centre was originally built to measure the actual height of Everest and K2 to see which is the highest. After that is settled, this centre becomes the High Attitude Science and Technology Research Centre, a joint project between the Nepali and the Italian Government.

We are fortunate to have a chance to meet the Centre manager who gave us a tour of the centre, its sophisticated equipment and even showed us the data he has been collecting relating to thickness of glaciers, temperature, pollution level etc for the past 30 years!!!

The data presented was seriously alarming... apart from obvious climate change evidence, this year, this region also faced for the 1st time the drying up of an important river due to lack of snow fall. As such, this year, the lodges downstream that supports Everest Base Camp trekkers like myself face water shortages issue. This problem is likely to escalate as the years go by based on the climate pattern.

This centre is totally powered by solar energy and data from its various sensors are transmitted to other centres worldwide via satellite. This centre however, lost its government fundings for 5 years now. Not wanting to abandon the project, the Centre manager, who have been working here for 17 years now, just maintains the equipment himself without funding. However, to sustain, the research centre now double up as a lodging and a restaurant for trekkers.

I am glad to have patronized this place for tonight and support the good work of this research centre.

The centre manager extended an invitation to anyone in Singapore who are keen on high altitude research to be in touch with him.

This visit to the Research Centre is the moment of my trip so far.

Sleeping at 5050m was quite difficult. Breathlessness happens all the time. I would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and pant.

Out of curiosity, I checked my %SpO2 right after I woke up breathless and it's about 60%. After panting for a few minutes, it went back up to 85%. Then I will slowly go back to sleep until the next time I woke up and pant again.

This cycle continues throughout the night for about 10 times or more.

Fortunately, this is only for 2 nights only.

By Wednesday, I will descend like a speedy bullet.

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Some random things I saw along the way today:

- Trekked past the world highest bakery (5000m) at Lobuche.

- Trekked past an abandoned village and got to see it's old fashioned architecture.

- Trekked past a memorial site for all those who died during Everest Summit attempts.

The most challenging part of today's trek is the temperature. It's below zero degree throughout.

Tomorrow we will hit Everest Base Camp (5364m)