It’s a foregone conclusion that our trail beyond this point will involve the usual toil and struggle, but after more than a week of conditioning the recurring rise and fall is actually alright for the legs. Just as always, it is the psychological challenge that can make our hike any trouble. So I won’t mention anything about trails and feeling tired, at least until we get to the dreaded village of Lobuche, which gives me about another week in this blog to colorfully describe the villages and flowers and puffy clouds until then. You don’t think I can wander off metaphorically for a few days and fixate on lumbering grey swirls of vapor roiling down to stifle the rumbling chatter of the river valley? Don’t tempt me, or you’ll have to read about puffy clouds all next week. The sight of spry, diminutive yet colorful patches of wildflowers cheering up the thinning, dead grass is still vivid in my mind. As a matter of fact, on a few of our casual conditioning day hikes I stopped, catching my breath, to pluck samples of the yellow, red and lavender wild blossoms to press and preserve in my Nepal tourist book. Saying that, I’m calling my masculinity into question, so I won’t mention what I was thinking about butterflies and unicorns.