At lunchtime we crossed a small suspension bridge and went into the yard behind a small cookhouse to wait for everyone to regroup. We were surprised to see birds flying around at this altitude and Ryan and Kyle S amused themselves by attempting to catch pictures of the birds in flight. We ate lunch beside a four by six foot pile of dried yak dung, the local heating fuel. We dozed and rested for the post lunch uphill assault, on rocky glacial moraine, while watching yaks traverse the tricky path. At the top of the hill was the Everest Memorial for Sherpas, with rock piles built in honour of those who lost their lives on the great mountain.
Westerners view the deaths as the ultimate sacrifice to self-fulfillment.
Sherpas view them as industrial accidents in a dangerous but necessary line of work in a land of scarce opportunity. Their children live in boarding schools where they will get a good education and better jobs. They have such a good work ethic that they take tremendous pride in doing their job well and enjoy the effort. We paid our respects and headed on to Lobuche, where the mountains became ranges instead of lone peaks. After a satellite phone call and a discussion with several doctors, Canadian and Spanish, we realized there was nothing to help him and he suffered in varying degrees of pain until we descended where the hands returned to normal quickly.