Sunrise Under Mountains

I completed my first on-the-job trek. It was pretty incredible. Our first night, it was thundering (fun fact: that’s pronounced “gar-dung gar-dune gar-nu” in Nepali) and we had difficulty find a room, because all of the places my colleagues remembered had fallen down in the earthquake. It was actually quite sobering; we stood in the ruins of a guesthouse a friend had stayed in the night before the earthquake. Many people died there, and he possibly would’ve too, if he hadn’t left just a few hours earlier. It really brought home the importance of all of our earthquake preparedness (more on that very important topic coming soon!).

Typical guesthouse room

After a night’s rest at one of the few still-standing guesthouses, we got up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas. At first, there was just the faint outline of the mountains, behind rolling hills (the hills would be considered mountains anywhere else in the world except at the base of the Himalayas). The Himalayas were a brilliant blue in the early morning light, starting to get red and pink as the sun came closer to the surface. As the sun rose, I could start to make out snow on the peaks. Thirty minutes after sunrise, the entire snow-covered Himalayan range was fully visible. The entire experience was incredible. My photos don’t do it justice. I could stare at the mountains forever. The range is truly unlike any other in the world. It spans the entire horizon, and it turns the most incredible colors at sunrise and sunset.

The mountains were clearly the high point (pun intended) of the trip. The next few days took us through small, remote villages, past temples (both Buddhist and Hindu), and past many terraced fields. One place we spent the night was home to the oldest temple in all of Nepal. It was built in the 500s. Truly incredible to look at. It had be partially destroyed during the earthquake, but they were working on restoring it.

The trek was a great period of self-reflection as well. I had a lot of time to journal, watch sunsets and sunrises, and really check-in with myself. Sometimes I get distracted by all of the external pressures and don’t get to spend as much time just meditating and reflecting as I would like. I really enjoyed the opportunity to think about how everything (projects and experiences) is going.

Nepal is the land of trekking, and I look forward to I having many more miles to trek in my future.