Brutal.

During the ascent I kept thinking of adjectives to describe what I was experiencing. I kept coming back to brutal. I may have been the only one thinking this though as averyone else seemed to spring up the path like mountain goats.

Brutal can also be applied to the journey from Pokhara to Hille, where we were dropped off. I had previously been told this was a road but my senses were telling me different. Respect to the bus drivers and busses that make this trip on a regular basis.

Our first experience on the “hill” (I’m using quote marks there because although this looks like a hill, our overnight accommodation is at an altitude that is already 50 percent higher than any mountain in the UK) was a steep climb to get to the lunch stopover. As with pretty much every other meal we’ve had since arriving in Nepal it was excellent. Coffee and fizzy drinks are banned so water and black tea were consumed.

Then the brutality. 650metres of ascent over a liner distance of about 600 metres sounds insignificant but I can tell you that those 2.5 hours were hard. Not the hardest thing I have ever done, but one of. The payoff is the tantalising glimpse of a giant hiding behind the foothills. We will see them in their full glory in 2 days time. I’m sure it will be worth it.