After a bone shattering eight hour bus ride, Mountaineers Bate and Schiller (aka me and my pal Julie) ended up at Dhunche, our gateway to the Himalayas. The next day, we started walking. "Mathi, Mathi" (up, up), shouted our porter-cum-guide Pasang Sherpa, who was shouldering most of our load. Due to his humour, nimbleness and physical attributes, we soon nicknamed him Jackie Chan. He didn't speak much English, and had a maddening habit of saying "yes" to everything. "Are we going that way?", I'd say, pointing. "Yes", said Jackie, promptly turning in the opposite direction. "What are the signs on the wall". "Yes, signs on the wall" - well, I know that... "Is it this one or this one?". You've guessed it - "Yes" - even when we asked two opposite questions. To be fair, he did try "no" out a few times, with equally lack of sense! But he was sweet, and got us there. Though he did take us up the wrong peak, but that's another story...

As it was the very end of the season, we practically had the park to ourselves, which was a real privilege. For the first three days we saw no one other than a handful of porters carrying heavy loads (they lug so much up the hill on their backs, it's insane -everything you can imagine, from chickens to massive bags of cement) and some increasingly hairy cows... Now, from my extensive research I can tell you that most yaks are not in fact purebred yaks, but a mixture of yaks and cows. The higher you get, the hairier they get - and hence the more yak-like, or 'yaktastic'. But a female yak (a purebred, no less) is actually called a nak. But most tourists can't tell the difference between these yaks, naks and yak-wannabes, and refer to them all as yaks. Bet you didn't know that.

After four days of walking, we arrived at Kenzing Gompa, a small, gorgeous village nestled between peaks on all sides. A Gompa is a Buddhist Monastery, and there was one perched on the hills above us. We stayed at the Lovely View Hotel, right at the edge of the village, closest to the foot of the mountains (and to use Jackie's favourite word yes, the view was lovely). At this altitude (around 3500m), it was harder to breathe, and it was considerably colder.

"It's like the Arctic or something", said Mountaineer Schiller, dolled up in an attractive array of thermal underwear covered with cut off pants and long socks and a woolly hat. "Well, it is the Himalayas", I pointed out. We were blessed with gorgeous weather - despite the approaching monsoon, we never got rained on and had fantastically clear views. At night however, the clouds rolled in and it went pitch black. We could feel the temperature drop dramatically as soon as the sun went over the mountains as we huddled next to the yak-dung burning fire in the lodge.

After a fitful night's sleep (possibly due to the altitude, or in my case, excitement), we got up early for a serious hike uphill to get to Kenzing Peak. Jackie carried our day bags, and we strode (when I say strode, what I mean is kind of staggered as fast as we could in the altitude) pretty much straight up. A short way up, Mountaineer Schiller turned to me, looking a little green and breathy, and said "I think I'm mildly afraid of heights". "Not a great trait in a mountaineer", I thought to myself, but kept quiet, only frightening her every now and again by standing on rocks near the edge as she sat down and clung onto the mountain for dear life!

Up and up we went, over hills and along ridges, when suddenly, the summit was in sight! Woohoo! Over the edge we came, to be greeted with prayer flags blowing in the wind and chortens blessing the top. We had truly spectacular views all around – it was everything I was expecting and more. Standing up there I felt close to some higher being, and very aware of the power of nature. It was one of the best things I've ever done – a definite 'high' for my time in Nepal.