While Joe and Bill cared for Mary, the rest of us waited at the Jhomolhari Base Camp making some acclimatisation walks and exploring this wonderful area. Jhomolhari (7314m) at dawn with a ruined Dzong (fortress) in the foreground. Jhomalhari was first climbed by an expedition led by Spencer Chapman in 1937.
Today no mountains of over 6000 metres may be climbed because of the feelings of the local people who regard them as sacred and blame crop failures on their invasion by foreign climbers.
| Jichu Drake (6794m) | 
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| We renewed our trek on 25 October, crossing the Ngile La (4870m), a long steady haul, but on the way saw a large herd of wild Blue Sheep. A long day reaching the village of Lingshi as it got dark. | 
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| The next day we crossed two passes and walked through two lovely very remote villages. | 
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| An old lady saying her prayers. | 
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| On the 27th another long plod up to the Jhari La, but it was a lovely day and we were rewarded on the Pass by a fine view of Kangcheda (6800m) | 
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| The following day we had a close view of Blue Sheep – a proud ram guarding his kittle herd. | 
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| This was our highest pass at 5,005 metres and it started to snow as we gained height. | 
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| Joe celebrating our ascent with a hand stand! | 
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| Our camp at Limithang in the chill of evening. | 
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| But we were rewarded with a magnificent dawn, lighting up Kangcheda in all its glory. | 
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| A short day at last after four 8/9 hour days on the trot led us to the substantial and obviously prosperous village of Laya. Joe rewarded us with a rest day and had arranged for us to stay in a Bhutanese home. | 
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| It had it’s own private “Gompa” room, in which Sue slept. | 
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| Our hosts by their stove, manufactured in Tibet. Above the stove, Yak cheeses are drying. | 
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| We were offered hot stone baths. They heat large stones in a fir and then plunge them into the water to give a stimulating and very hot bath. Joe enjoying his, | 
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| We set out on out longest day of all on 31 October, down the valley towards Gasa. On the way met Princess Euphelma, sister of the king, on her way to make a state visit to Laya.
We weren’t meant to take pictures but Bill sneaked this one, of this lovely young girl, in jeans, listening to her iPod, trekking just like us up to the village we had just left. She came over to talk to us and warned us with feeling, that we still had a long way to go. She was right. We’d noticed a little pavilion tent just below the village, where we guessed she’d stop and change before riding in State into the village itself. |
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| It started to snow just before we finished for the day and snowed all night, collapsing our cook tent in which most of our support team were sleeping – and our adventure was by no means over! | 
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| A tree had collapsed under the weight of snow during the night and our crew had to build a make shift bridge over it – the picture above gives no impression of just how steep was the drop below and if the make shift bridge had collapsed as one of the mules crossed it would almost certainly have fallen to its death. | 
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| But we came below the snow line and at last caught sight of the handsome Dzong of Gasa and the end of our trek since this was the road head. | 
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| We commandeered a pavilion that had been set up for a visiting minister to have our lunch out of the rain. | 
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