In the less than a week that we were away from Base Camp, there were many changes. The big ‘mushroom rock’ that marks our starting point of the trail that leads up the ice fall is still standing, but so much else has changed.

The biggest change was that all the snow that had covered just about everything – rocks, the ice fall and more has melted. The rivers that drain all the ice and snow have gotten larger as well. It is an interesting change and an obvious prelude to bigger changes in the future.

‘These used to be big ice pinnacles,’ Tshering has told me more than once.

I spent part of the afternoon poking around the lower ice fall again. It is a weird mix of worlds – tall fins of snow and ice juxtaposed next to flat rocky glacial till. Huge erratic rocks placed delicately in such random places that it’s hard not to imagine some greater scheme to their arrangement.

In reality, ice and land are operating under fairly well understood geological principles. The law of supposition states that younger sediments are deposited on top of older ones. The water from melting ice joins force to create flowing rivers, that if I were about one-tenth my size, would make formidable whitewater runs. The ripples, rapids and bending oxbows are the same as I have seen on the many larger rivers and streams I have paddled and fished in my life.

I stood outside my tent looking at the night sky before going to sleep. The milky way, clear and distinct, stretched from one side of the horizon to the next. I tried to orient myself to all the constellations that I know. All I could see were parts: two stars of Orion’s belt, half of the big dipper, the tall peaks of the surrounding mountains blocking the view of all things I knew to be familiar

Image: A black and white image of a small river running adjacent to the lower ice fall.