Some would have you believe that walking from point A to point B simply involves placing one foot in front of the other and repeating the pattern. I don’t take that ability for granted, but when it comes to hiking any place more rugged than a shopping mall there is a little technique involved if you want to keep your ankles and knees from going mutant on you. The first consideration is the footwear, and it’s a relationship of trust and camaraderie that you build up with your boots before you hit the trails. Mom always warned you to wait a while after lunch before swimming and to break your boots in before you go on a long hike. I’ve talked about boots here before, so I won’t get into that, but take it as a reminder to prepare some smelly, dusty boots so that they’ll have supple leather and limber footing for you. On a side note, don’t wear court shoes (like basketball or tennis) on a long hike. I wore my flat-soled and non-cushioned tennis shoes on a Boy Scout 50/20 hike (50 miles in 20 hours) from here to some other time zone and back. Well, not the “and back” part because my feet got so sore by halfway that I couldn’t walk anymore. The lack of padding and arch support left my little foot muscles so fatigued that I could barely manage a few excruciating steps at a time.

This weekend I stopped by to visit some family in the area and I was excited to report on my experiences from Nepal. I brought along a few tapes of digital video I had shot over the month, and I figured the best way to describe the whole adventure was to show them the footage. That’s a treat I’ll have for this website some day soon, but there are a lot of wobbly miscues I need to edit out first. I’d like to convey the true sense of the surroundings to them, with all the sounds and smells, but watching all of the video for the first time it seemed far removed from the muggy heat of Bangkok and the sense of dread of climbing the hill above Namche. Maybe with some editing magic and some extra action scenes I’ll be able to enhance the sense of immersion.