Hey this is TA calling in from day 31, in a location called dunga kharka. So remembe dunga means rock and kharka means place where you pasture animals. So we’re in a rocky pasture. We actually can’t see too many of the rocks because they are covered in snow at the moment. Our elevation is 3471 m and you just heard that lovely little beep beep sound and yesterday if you listened to the update that was a texter palooza. We had 10 texts come in so that may have actually broken the record for a single day incoming text. Texts, just so you know if you use your initials instead of your full name you may score a few more characters because there is a 160 of them and seems they cut off at the end.

A big day for us here, this is a day for which this expedition was named. A great big day. A day that certainly more climb than walk. We left our snowy campsite form last night and had a 400 m gain past the Molun Pokhari which was absolutely gorgeous and then we climbed up to the Molun Pokhari path and had an amazing view of makalu though the clouds sort of hid it a little bit but cool to see it. One of our first passes where we actually had a clear view and then we had a 700 m descent, so both the ascent and descent were all in snow. The climb was pretty good because we got a good early start and so it wasn’t so bad. The steps were holding pretty well but coming back down we definitely knew the snow had gotten softer. We were regularly sinking into our knees, sometimes into our thighs and occasionally into our middle.

It was sunny most of the day so we’re all feeling a little cooked by the death star as I used to call it on Mckinley and you definitely can see a fatigue throughout the entire team. Again probably not a day where our fitbit statistics really reflect the reality of our day but Marian had 13 929 steps, 41 floors, 9.67 km. I had 16 896 steps, 55 floors and 11 km and Camolina was the winner today with 19, 264 steps and 12.75 km. In reality the 400 meters is probably closer to 120 floors. Wanted to say a big hello to the grade 4’s at Bishop Abraham. I know you guys are following closely. Hope you’re having a great Monday at school today. We came as close I think to Tibet as we will come when we were at the Molun Pokhari today. We had joked at some point about a run to Tibet but it turned out the topography was quite steep so it definitely wouldn’t have been a run to the poptila into Tibet. It definitely would’ve been a long climb. I wanted to share a couple of mountain geography terms with you today. These are sherpa terms for some geography because we are travelling through mountain geography. So in sherpa a mountain is known as a Ree and a snowcovered mountain is actually known as a kangree.

We’ve been spending a lot of time in the forest its called natti. We went by a sacred pokhari or lake today and in sherpa that would be a tso. T-S-0. We haven’t seen, we saw one glacier in the trip in the distance but glacier is a dza. D-Z-A and we’re camped beside the dunga khola so the dhunge river today. So in sherpa a river is known as a sangpo. So those are some mountain geography terms from the sherpa language. So that’s it for our big Monday. I was reminded today of a book I read once called “We made the road by walking” and definitely this piece of the trail, the great Himalayan trail we’re on at the moment, its just a line its not a fixed route and so Lakpa and Chandra once again were the trail makers. Followed by us step fixers like yesterday. It is a line on the map it is not a developed trail so we definitely appreciate their expertise in finding the route having come through this piece before.

Awesome day with big mountain dews. Lots and lots of snow and as you can probably hear we worked pretty hard so we’re pretty tired. So that is it for us today and we will catch you from the great big walk tomorrow. Hope you had a little time to get out and find your fit and do a little walking, running, shuffling or whatever it is that makes you happy and gets you moving. Thanks. Take care! Bye!

Total Steps for TA: 16 896 steps, 55 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 13 929 steps, 41 floors

Total Distance for TA:11 km

Total Distance for Marian: 9.67 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.