Day 3 is generally the shortest and easiest day of any Everest Base Camp Trek. This is an acclimatization day where you’re expected to hike up a hill, gain some elevation, and then go back down to Namche Bazaar to spend a second night there.
Many people do this with a day hike to Hotel Everest View, which is a nice hotel sitting on a steep hill above Namche. Another bonus is that you can see Everest and a bunch of other peaks from the top of this hill (hence the name of the hotel).
As soon as I stepped out of my lodge in the morning, it was very obvious that I wouldn’t be seeing Everest on this day.
It was extremely overcast and cold (even for February), and the visibility was bad. Then it started snowing.
But acclimatization duty was calling, so I started hiking up the hill.
After about 1 hour of exhaustingly steep hiking in cold, annoying weather, I reached a different hotel called Everest Sherpa Resorts.
At this point it was so foggy I couldn’t see any of the mountains at all, so I decided to stop here for some lemon tea and check my position. It turns out Everest Sherpa Resorts sits at 3,820 meters, so I had done most of my acclimatization already.
The visibility was still bad, so I decided to head back down to Namche.