It is solemn amazement to recall my experiences from last year. One year ago from today I was climbing above 12,000 feet in the Nepalese Himalaya negotiating the thinning atmosphere and the right of way of yaks on the dusty trails. I’ve taken some time off of searching my thoughts and memories of my time in Nepal, and now with a fresh look back I realize how genuinely meaningful it was for me. Of course I enjoyed the physical challenge of persisting on the trails, but I realize the people I got to know made a deep impact on me. They shared their rich yet humble culture, and showed me their very genuine human character.

The memories flooded back in as I saw the movie “Himalaya” recently. This beautiful film is widely regarded as a stunning visual record of the landscape and people of the Himalayas. The scenery and people were striking, but I was drawn in on a deep level with the culture, conditions, and the love put into the film making. I got to know quite a lot about Sherpa and Tibetan culture since I spent so much insightful quality time talking with Pema Dorje Sherpa last year. While I was visiting his home village of Khumjung I was overwhelmed with the ways of his culture, so I wasn’t able to absorb a lot of the details. Watching “Himalaya” I was finally able to take in the experiences, such as what it would be like to join in a ceremony with the Lamas in a small Buddhist shrine to bless a departing caravan.

I felt like I was there in the villages and in the high mountain trails in the movie and I was familiar with many of the details of Himalayan life. I recognized so many artifacts, mannerisms, even some of the Tibetan language, and I could feel how thin the air was. My breath was short as they pushed into the high mountain pass against a biting blizzard. The characters couldn’t have been more authentic since many of them were literal inhabitants of the formidable terrain. I met a few caravaners like that (with red cloth wrapped into their long, black hair) while I was at the Namche market, and later I shared a water bottle with them out on the trail. Unfortunately we couldn’t really communicate, but I felt an appreciation for their lifelong struggles and joys.

I don’t know which piece of good news to share with your first. I guess I’ll postpone some of my self-promotion and give you an update on our good friend Pema. He keeps himself busy from fall to spring hiking the steep Khumbu trails of his home neighborhood in Nepal and tends to maintaining his prosperous lodges. You can be sure that he gets quite enthused when summer comes along and the heavy monsoon rain make his trekking business impractical. He absolutely loves getting out and traveling the world in the summers, as he has been doing for many years. He has made so many friends across the far corners of the globe that it takes him all summer to dash around and drop in for quick visits. For now he’s in the eastern United States, and by the end of the summer he’ll whip through here on his way to California. I suggested that either he has too many friends to visit or he should find more excuses to get away from Nepal.

Utah is definitely going through its awkward phase in the change from winter to spring. The metaphor for the development phases in a person’s life is pretty obvious since the teenage years act out a brief tantrum of horrifying thunder and rebellious destruction. Once it passes the weather is sunny and mild, just like how a lot of us in America soon start wearing Dockers and we get a mortgage. The transition from fall into winter, and correspondingly our personal transition into old age, is usually very mellow. Shovan, or own Subject Matter Expert on Nepal, is excited to see the raging wind gusts, and I’m pacing around reminding everyone to save their work on their computers in case the power goes out. Shovan describes the weather patterns as being much, much different from this.

Are you spontaneous like me when it comes to adjusting your day’s plans, or your lifetime destiny for that matter? Let me clarify a little; I’m a Space Cadet when it comes to making a plan and I’ve just adapted to being very flexible and minimally invested in setting my itinerary. One December I arranged for some extended time off from work to allow for a far away visit home. I thought I had prepared just sufficiently for my travels by clicking enough buttons on an airline reservation website, and I had shuffled a few official memos around my office to arrange for my absence. Literally the day I was planning to fly out I realized I didn’t actually have an airline reservation at all. I thought it was a little mysterious that my credit card was never charged and I never received any kind of confirmation. To some this might have been a devastating realization and a startling rebuke to take more personal responsibility.