Trekking combines peace and peril, pleasure and pain. Disdainful peaks, landscape in continual battle with the elements, the altitude. If man has made an impact with his animals, his constant demand for wood, the surroundings betray his efforts. Man cowers, battered and small, umbrella'd in draughty lodges built rugged, as the landscape, camouflaged to avoid the persecution of the wind and snow. He knows the fight can not be won and is peaceful, not frustrated. A foothold established generations ago is all this environment will allow.

A trek, even a successful one, never gives you the sense of beating this land. Rather, nature has granted you passage by turning her back when, if she gives you her full attention, your submission would inevitably follow. She will permit glances at her grandeur, reconfirming her power, taming your achievement with the scope of the untouched, the all but untouchable.

A sense of achievement we nevertheless feel. 8 days of effort, of exposure to this realm, of weary legs, damaged feet and lungs on fire. The persistent climbs turn muscle to burning iron, the falls reducing them to wobble of jelly. Bitter cold penetrating all protection, the altitude parching us of energising air.

The Gods are strong around here, nature's chaos playing its most forceful hands. Pray for its mercy as its rage crumbles that foothold, eroding at the spirit of man.