Back in the early days of this blog I mentioned how important it was to break in and test your boots before setting out on an extended hike. Rich Christiansen, our CEO (Chief Enthusiast of the Outdoors) passed on an old pair of boots to me that carried me through the whole of our trek in Nepal last fall. They were very comfortable, durable and lightweight, but over the course of unknown hundreds of miles of rugged mountain terrain the stitching on the uppers was coming undone and the traction on the soles was worn away. For the majority of miles on our hike over the uneven flagstones of the Khumbu that condition actually seemed to be an asset. The worn soles had more the effect of being like specialized rock climbing footwear that could get good traction on the varied surfaces.

Let’s say the symptoms of spring fever suddenly flare up on you when you’ve got a free day. You dig into the back corner of your closet where you last remember seeing your boots and hiking gear, and lace up and cram in a few things into your daypack. At least here the snow has just cleared and the air and soil share a similar soggy quality. It’s not a terrible idea to get an early start conditioning to up for hiking, but then the weather conditions are still going to take some serious consideration for safety. The thing about those of us living inland and up in the mountains is that we base clothing levels on a skewed relative perspective on the outside temperature. I was reminded this winter that it get’s really cold here with a relentless chill to the point that it eventually seems normal.

Now is a good time to have a look at our main page again since we’ve finally been adding some of those articles I wrote when we returned from Nepal. I spent most of November writing up short pieces on any subject we could come up with on our experience in the Hindu Kingdom. There is a long list of content articles to add to the site, and we just added about 30 of them to the menu. Not counting the blog, the photo gallery, and the Nepali news, there are 65 content pages on our site. There are still another 46 pages to add to the menu, but you can already see the list is getting to be a bit overwhelming, as far as layout and the sitemap are concerned. In between other projects we’re thinking of how to organize the menu layout so that it will be well organized and will convey exactly how extensive our coverage is. Having over 120 menu items will be pretty overwhelming. I’m very excited to get this added to the site so that I can share the wonderful ideas, history, and the unexpected surprises of Nepal.

A day of rest and Diamox did me very well, apart from the experience of extreme fluids management. Once my headache had cleared I started taking a smaller dose of the medication and I felt I was back on a good rate of acclimatization. We packed up and moved out for our next camping spot, this time in Thokla. As far as hiking goes things are getting a lot easier on our legs. We’ve conditioned up pretty well and seeing a little incline is not really a bother. However, that all may be canceled out by the fact that the thinner air is getting to each and every one of us, and we’re all starting to make a degree of extra effort to keep moving our hiking boots forward on the trail. On these dry days the dust kicks up a bit, so it gets a little unpleasant to be shuffling through in a herd, kicking up all the dust, imagining what all kinds of biological additives we’re sucking in. Still the magnificent landscape is all in clear view. The terrain is no mystery since there is not much in the way of vegetation to obscure the contours.