Walking Nepal’s Great Himalaya Trail

The mud squished below my boots, as I tried my best to avoid patches of ice and snow that littered the mountain I was descending.

The sky was getting darker. My hiking partner Buckey yelled at me from ahead, “I found a stream.”

We had walked all day, trying to conserve the murky pond water that filled our water bottles.

The pond had been the only water source we had found in the last twenty-four hours on this ridge line along the Great Himalaya Trail.

Overwhelmed by the curious attention we had received from the locals of eastern Nepal who rarely see tourists, we decided to get away from the villages and onto a more remote path.

I continued at my cautious pace until I reached the stream. Buckey was dumping out the rest of his pond water and filling his bottles from the icy cool stream. I followed suit, and we continued downhill as the clouds rolled in.

There was smoke billowing out of a hut in the distance. I could make out a few buffalo and a man standing outside. He waved at…