Anyone who knows me, even a little, can probably tell I love mountains and overseas challenges. Yes it drains my bank account (trust me, I am no rich woman) and I freak out before I go and it is certainly “Type 2 fun”. But I keep doing it…something in me yearns for it, and regardless of whats happening in my day to day life, I know I’ll end up hitting that “Book Now” button without much of a thought. And voilá! I’m going on an adventure. I THEN have my panic of “oh shit…I need to get fit…and where am I going to find the money from for my monthly payments?….oh and I’ll need to get those bits of kit I don’t already have…oh boy”.
The Himalaya mountain range was home to my first big challenge expedition; Everest Base Camp for the British Heart Foundation. I booked it on a total whim. I’d always been an outdoorsy kid and enjoyed walking, but I’d never even done a munro or big hill, never mind high altitude, and I went to my uni gym approximately once per year. But there I was approaching the end of my uni degree, with nothing but “adult life” of work and sleep ahead of me. I wanted to do something for charity, so looked up the British Heart Foundation (a charity I feel deeply connected too, particularly at that time in my life) and on their home page the Everest Base Camp trek was advertised. After a bit of reading about the trek, I did what any responsible adult would do (pah) and I used my student loan money to pay my deposit. “Hey Mum, Hey Dad, decided I’m headed to Nepal in a year, just booked a charity trek to Everest, hope that’s cool”.
I had a tough time fundraising (so so many people to thank for help with that!), so I extended the trek to a year later, 2015, to give myself more time and thankfully I made a fair bit over my minimum fundraising requirement. And the rest was history. You can read about the actual trek itself here (it was my first ever blog post that started up Tents, Trees and Bumble Bees, so give me a little lee-way for my writing skills!). On my return I knew something had changed in me. It’s taken a while for me to realise what it was, but now I am sure of it: the Himalaya has stolen a piece of my heart.
This new hobby has appeared in my life that sucks away at my money and my mind, and yet I cannot get out of it’s grasp…and there’s not a single part of me that wants to. It’s brought me so much happiness, it’s indescribable. I’ve only done a few treks since EBC (being Los Tres Picos in Spain and Stok Kangri, also in the Himalaya, on the Indian side), but I find myself sitting now, with no overseas challenges to look forward to (yet…), yearning to head back to that profound mountain range.
I could ramble on about the multitude of reasons why the Himalaya has a particular hold on me, but I’ve narrowed it down to three particular things that stick out in my mind, and wanted to share these with you in photo-form.
The People
The Panoramas
The Peace and Solitude
I’ll definitely be back to this magnificent place again soon. My hope is that I can one day take a month or so out of work, and head over to Nepal again for a mix of travel, volunteering and mountain climbing! If anyone has tips for this please reach out! And if anyone out there is even remotely considering visiting this incredible part of the world, don’t think and just do. It might even change your life, like it did mine.
