Everest Uncensored

It was already 8:30 in the morning, and many of us were in Deerwalk premises waiting for the organizer to arrive so that we could go together on the hike with excitement. Too bad, there was miscommunication among us and we decided to meet him and rest of the hikers at Koteshwor. Wishing Aawart a very happy birthday, we all finally met at Koteshwor and forgot everything that happened because of communication problem.

It was cold outside but the climate was very pleasant. All of us, fresh and enthusiastic, gathered at the Deerwalk premises at around 8 am in the morning. The van left the premises at around 8:30 am. After picking Rajendra from Sorhakhutte, we finally reached Swayambhu chakrapath at around 9 am. The van stopped at Hungry House Restaurant where we had our morning breakfast. After having few talks with tea, bread and eggs, we finally headed off for the hike at 10 am. Our destination is Seto Gumba.

Though the starting was in a luxury van, we had to be on our feet once the van left us at the gate of Shivapuri National Park. Initial target was to have comfortable hike to ‘Jhor’ from ‘Pani-Muhan’. However the hikers chose to climb up to ShivaPuri and walk along the hillside to ‘Jhor’. As we walked for a few minutes gossiping and taking photos, Sushant suggested we take a short-cut, which was a steep up-hill climb. That was wonderful, everybody rushed up that path. As it was the beginning, everybody enjoyed the hill. We kept on walking up with snacks and photographs.

Two years of continuous work without a long vacation had taken a toll on me. I had been on both sides of Annapurna and wanted to be on mountains once again. Sunil and I had been working on our project Makalu, for a while and we desperately needed a break. We set plans to be at Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) and taking several days’ leave rushed to Pokhara leaving office around 3:15pm on a Friday. We stayed in Pokhara at my home for the night.