If we’re out camping in the wilderness and going without washing for weeks at a time then we’re rugged enough to wake up and get started a little bit early for our hike to the top of Kala Patthar. Our guide Pema knows well enough that a whole trek could be ruined by delaying the start just a few hours on the day of the final ascent. Although you could say that the journey is the destination, most of Pema’s clients hired him to actually get to the top of a mountain and get pictures of themselves as proof of the efforts. Add to that the costs of travel and taking time off from their jobs, and the price puts pressure on reaching the objective. The M.O. of the weather patterns up in the Himalayas is to offer clear skies in the early morning through noon, then in the after noon the tufts of condensed water vapor begin to rise up out of the valleys and they bunch up against the slopes.

Looking back now on Lobuche we were thrilled and relieved to finally arrive, but once we saw it we were ready to quickly move on. It was a destination that we envisioned as an amazing goal, and it’s the sort of challenge you place before yourself that you don’t know how you’ll ever reach it. There were so many thousands of feet of elevation and miles of winding trails to traverse before we could get up there. As with many monumental tasks you can’t wrap your brain around all the details and all the hard work that it will take to reach it, so you just let it go and you throw yourself forward. We also had built up a lot of anticipation by hearing of the experiences of other hikers who were returning and euphoric from the joys of the relatively lower elevation. With all of this in mind we really were thrilled to realize we had passed through all the anxious anticipation, like kids making a trip to a great amusement park.

Thokla is like any dusty frontier outpost you would see in an old cowboy movie, with one rocky path winding between the one drafty outhouse and the heaps of wood and tin making up the structures. Being so far from the administrative control center of the country, even from anyone carrying any sort of official title, we felt like we were free to make our own destiny, but exposed to the dangers of lawlessness lurking in the shadows. Who would do such a thing as cause trouble in this community though? From what I saw the Sherpa people really didn’t get into much trouble, and the hikers were all amiable and considerate for others’ well-being. The yaks sure didn’t get out of hand, as long as there was some dried out grass stubble within reach of their sweeping tongues. The only time our yaks got a little bit stimulated was when our junior member Tashi hopped onto one of them and started kicking and yammering like a wildcat.