Forget what you thought was important to be happy. The mountain strips you of everything and gives you back to yourself
Put on your fleece, your Charles Ingalls-style pant and your socks before slipping into your sleeping bag special mountain, guaranteed minus fifteen degrees. Because it freezes hard at five thousand.
Cover your head, don’t forget your hat, your bonnet, your cap, your robber hood.
The mountain will win you over, that’s for sure, but you also have to face it at the risk of getting lost
Look where you put your feet at each step, pass between the stones and above all, go slowly.
I have three speeds built into my trekking shoes: two centimetre steps, five centimetre steps and in turbo mode, fifty centimetre steps. Then it’s waltz time.
Breathe as much as you can, stick out your tongue like the yaks on the climb.
Breathe softly, loudly, deeply, but breathe.
Swing your hips, to the right, to the left, to create a little inertia, don’t get your feet caught in the sticks, the ravine is waiting for you.
The mountains of Nepal live up to their reputation: mythical, divine and inspiring
To make this adventure a lesson in life, Himalayans Mountains are incomparable. It’s cold, it’s hot, it’s long, it’s huge. It’s pure and it’s hard, but above all it’s full of emotions.
Know that once this journey is accomplished, no mountain will be worth it anymore. Here, the walker is at the Hilton of the submits.
It’s not just rocks, pebbles, cliffs or peaks. You will see the sky like nowhere else, the men and women of this country too.
Everything sucks you in, intoxicates you and dazzles you. The culture, the cairns on the path, the prayer flags flapping in the wind like slam, like your teeth-chattering, at the top of the pass.
The pure air on your cheeks, the heavenly light in your eyes.
The muscle, the breath, the mind and the humility
Brake with your buttocks, push on your arms, pull on your legs.
When it’s going up and it’s been going up for five hours, don’t look at the top, lower your head and look at the tips of your shoes. Turn your head, look at the landscape, look at the valley behind you, at the icy mountains that you won’t climb. Look at the sherpas in shorts, in flip-flops, their legs twisted by the effort, their head deformed by the headband, very small, very thin, bravely climbing the hill where you are struggling in your professional mountain equipment.
They have eighty kilos on their backs, suddenly you don’t feel like complaining any more. It gives you courage, a little shame and a good lesson of humility, you who moan, you who are here on holiday…
Smile to everyone on your way, even the assholes, you will surely find them in the same lodge as you tonight
Admire the magnificent, powerful, furry yaks but get out of the way quickly because their sharp horns are wider than their bellies. And then they don’t know the priority to the right, they just push you, that’s all, too bad for you if you fall.
The high mountains are not the greatest luxury, but what they give is impossible to buy
Don’t believe in the blue sky, in the sun on your face, the icy clouds, as thin as candyfloss, come over you like a herd of yaks at full gallop, blocking the horizon, invading the space with ghosts.
Be careful not to take a room near the toilet, because there is no sewer here.
Pee before you go to bed, otherwise you will have to go there in the middle of the night, with your torch, shoes and down jacket.
Never forget to keep your roll of toilet paper with you, a pair of flip-flops to go and take a warm shower with a watering can over your head, standing… in the Turkish toilet, in the hut at the back of the garden.
Keep your jacket on for diner at the lodge restaurant, they heat the whole room with a single stove that burns dried yak poop.
Dive into this lack of comfort with delight, it’s the adventure of your life.
Learn the way, not the destination
And there, tired of getting up at dawn, of having swallowed your 1000 metres of difference in altitude, you will drink a milk tea, you will share with the others, who are not always like you, the steps of your day. Those who unfold the cards on the table and count their average, their performance of the day.
There will also be those who are like you: Everest snails, asthmatic turtles, dusty caterpillars. Simple, humble people who are enriched by the moment and not by the exploit.
Look around, look up, look inside you
