Nepal /
Day 5: Side hike to Ama Dablam Base Camp
Distance: 5 km 
Time: 3 hours
Night: Everest Base Camp
Start elevation (Gorak Shep): 5,163 m
Max elevation (Everest Base Camp): 5,368 m
End elevation (Everest Base Camp): 5,368 m
Total ascent / descent: 242 m / 37 m
Elevation gain: 205 m
Leaving our Gorak Shep friends.
See you tomorrow!
The route starts pretty flat.
But it throws at you some sobering vistas.
Rick Hitch, 55, died of an apparent heart attack on May 1, collapsing at 23,000 feet as he approached the last base camp before the Mount Everest summit. Public Radio International
First sight of Everest Base Camp still far in the distance - while trying to avoid head-on collission with these Himalayan SUVs, used both for transporting goods up as well as getting altitude-sick trekkers down.
They stop for nothing.
Final descent onto the glacier and into the camp.
This pile of rocks is the end of the standard EBC route - ordinary trekkers are not allowed behind this point and into the camp.
It is quite a busy spot, with everybody queueing for their turn to get that "finisher photo". Also, you can hear wild shouts of joy from far away.
Fortunately, as we are spending the night in the camp, we can skip the photo part for now, and leave it until tomorrow morning - hopefully no one will be around then, and we will have some sunshine instead of current heavy cloud cover.
Let's continue into the camp and find our base for the night.
Dramatic entrance.
While milling around the entrance stones we again meet our accidental climber friend Wojtek (who is planning to summit Everest in about a month), and join his group returning to the camp from Pumori Base Camp acclimatisation hike.
Just following them up to the high camp and looking for our place.
Our home for this night.
