Hey this is TA calling in from day 48. We are at the Injola lake camp at an elevation of  4943. What an awesome day we had. My goodness gracious. Amphu labtsa is a fabulous pass. A great one to be number 3. The one side that we climbed we ascended this morning had the mushroom ice fall and it was a fairly inactive icefall so that means we could enjoy being amongst the towering ice cliffs as we passed through there and took lots of pictures and we topped up and our amazing Sherpa climbing team had the porters all set up in terms of lowering their loads and then going down so we just popped over the top, spotted Makalu and lots of other peaks. The Island peak and Lohtse and started the descent. The first of the bit was kind of interesting. Some scrambly rocky stuff with our crampons on. Then we got to the fixed line and then to our first abseil or repel.

Kind of interesting because as we were going down, a German team was coming up. They were actually climbing with Al Hancock on Makalu but they wanted to warm up doing what they call the icy kols. So we had to be very careful not to step on their ropes with our crampons. Then we had a fun kind of like rampy descent that was protected by press hooks and safety as we went down and had some lunch. Got everyone off the mountain, got the mountain all cleaned of all the protective gear and then made our way another couple of hours down. So a big long day for everyone. We were up at five and the first group of us pulled into camp here at 5. The other guys got in at 6 and definitely fatigue all around and excitement all around. People are feeling pretty proud of themselves as they should. 3 kols, without any incidents except perhaps maybe one smashed hot chocolate and we can strain out the plastic bits with our teeth.

Marian had 15 164 steps. I had 15 425 and Cam had 13 989. We all logged in around 10 km for today so a big day and with our elevation gain it was about 100 floors. Wanted to say congrats to Carly. That is terrific. I am so excited you’ve got that submitted and yes indeed we’ve got lots to celebrate when we’re back. Congrats to the grade 4 class at Bishop of Abraham for 25 times around the gym. That is amazing. Thanks Glen for your text it couldn’t have arrived on a better day and congrats to Yaya that’s cool that you got an award. So lots of things to celebrate here on day 48 of the great big walk. Which today was definitely one of those great big climb days.

Everyone is looking forward to a good night’s sleep. A little bit lower elevation here. Again it is kind of funny to think of 5000 m as lower elevation but tomorro we will drive to dinboche and skins wounds might actually start healing, snickers bars will be available and maybe a little bit of internet. Who knows? But fabulous day, just an awesome pass, so excited. Marian and I were supposed to cross it a year ago. So exciting to do it today. Hello again to Christina Tyler. You would’ve loved it. It was amazing, maybe some day you will put it back on your adventure schedule and hope you found some time to take a great big walk today or a great big swim or a great big hike or a great big soccer game or a great big hockey game. Whatever it is, find something that you love to do and get out there and do it because again I think that our lives are enriched when we do. That’s all from today. I’ll stop rambling on and catch my breath and we will catch you from Dingboche tomorrow on the great big walk. Thanks so much! Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: I had 15 425, 100 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 15 164 steps, 100 floors

Total Distance for TA:

Total Distance for Marian:

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.