Trekking In Nepal: Beautiful Day, Incredible View (Part IV)

The teahouse accommodations were good and I slept solidly until about 4am, and then dozed on and off until 6am before getting out of my sleeping bag.  After packing up my gear and getting my backpack ready for the day's hike, I joined my fellow trekkers for breakfast and ate a good cheese omelet with Tibetan fried bread and jam.  My appetite was slowly returning and my legs felt good despite all of the stairs the previous day.

We left the the village of Ulleri at 8am and continued along the trail up the valley.  It was a warm, sunny day and I stripped off a couple of layers once I got warmed up.  The trail was a bit rocky, but it wasn't crowded with too many people.  We took a break about 9am and shortly after entered a rhodedendron forest that offered shade and a light floral scent given by the trees thinking about awakening from the cold winter.  We made good time along the trail as it climbed higher in elevation.  Our destination for the day was the large village of Ghorepani and we reached it jut after noon, grabbed a quick snack at a big teahouse, and then hiked about halfway up a nearby hill for an even better views of the mountains.

We wanted to reach the top of the hill, but the trail was icy from the recent storms that had gone through Nepal several days ago and the afternoon clouds started to develop over the mountains, so we stopped about halfway up and simply enjoyed the incredible views.  From west to east, we could see a vista of about 50 miles of the central Nepal Himalaya, including two of the world's highest mountains - Dhaulagiri and Annapurna.  We spent almost an hour taking it all in, much of it in silence, just watching the massive mountains and the clouds playing across the snowcapped peaks.  The two days of hiking were a small price to pay.

As the northern horizon clouded up over the mountains, we walked down the hill and went back to the teahouse for a late lunch of ginger tea (good for the stomach), soup and french fries (called crisps by the Nepalese) while talking until 4pm.  After going back to the room and doing some personal hygiene (but not a shower - not a fan of cold showers), I put on some clean clothes and laid out on my sleeping bag with a book and some crossword puzzles.  Small children were playing in a nearby schoolyard and rugged ponies, most with a bells around their necks, walked by on a nearby trail.  Occasionally I turned and looked out the small window at the swirling clouds in the far distance.

We took the short walk back to the lodge area of the teahouse, sat down by the fire to warm up a bit and put in our orders for dinner.  The night quickly cooled off once the sun fell below the peaks to the west, but it wasn't too bad compared to the winter temps in Minnesota.  Dinner arrived about an hour later and I enjoyed a tasty pizza (not quite Western style or Italian, but still good) and some apple pie.  Since we wanted to get an early start in the morning, we left the lodge soon after dinner and I was nestled into my sleeping bag, asleep by 8pm.

Next up: The author and his buddies hike back down the valley, past Ulleri and down to a peaceful teahouse near a river running through the valley.  Going up can be tough, but going down the rocky trail is even tougher.