The owner of the lodge accepting the book. That's Moti, our assistant sirdar standing off to the right. Moti is what's known as a climbing sirdar. He usually works for mountain climbing expeditions. By the time we had reached this location, 5 people had died on Everest (3 sherpas at once in the Khumbu icefall and 2 Europeans). One of the sherpas who was killed was a close friend of Moti. Moti learned about the death back in Namche. When we reached Dingboche later that day, we would sleep there for 2 nights to acclimatize before going yet higher. But after sleeping the first night at Dingboche, we didn't just sit around relaxing. We trekked up the Imja Kola Valley (Imja Kola is one of the glacial rivers, like the Dudh Kosi) to a village called Chukhung (15,584') in order to break the 15,000' ceiling. Then we would trek back down to Dingboche for the second night's sleep (climb high, sleep low).