We awoke early in the morning and were met by a jeep at our hotel. The four of us piled in with our two guides, Pemba and Rupesh, and headed to the trekking starting point. I'm not sure if the sea was angry on this day but the fog was sure thick. This was us at the first of many checkpoint/boarder crossings.

About an hour later, we stopped in a little town called Manebhanjan for breakfast, to pick up some extra rented gear (sleeping bags etc.) and to change into a proper 4wd jeep that could handle the steep and rocky ascent up the mountain to our drop off point. Unfortunately for the boys (or fortunately depending on your perspective), there was only a front cab in this jeep so they had to stand on the back with the guides. Not a place for ladies...

The next 3 hours were spent being jostled around in the jeep as it bounced around on the narrow stone road full of S-bends (actually more like Z's). By lunchtime we reached our trekking starting point. Before beginning our climb, we first had lunch at a local teahouse. As you can see, things were decidedly colder in the mountains even when we were inside.

After lunch we said goodbye to the jeep and disappeared into fog.

The fog resulted in zero panaramic moutain views but made up for that in providing atmospheric trekking conditions where people, trees, the path faded into the fog and then reappeared moments later.

The path was steep and, combined with the increase in altitude, it was tough going. The 7km leg took us almost four hours to complete.

When we finally reached where we'd be overnighting, the summit of Sandakphu at 3636 meters, it was around 5pm in the evening. We stayed at the Sherpa Chalet, one of the few family-run lodges that perched on the top of the mountain. These lodges and a border checkpoint were all that made up the village of Sandakphu. Although the Singalila National park is claimed by India, our trek straddled the boarder of Nepal and India so we were quite often going in and out of Nepal and each time (or when they felt like it) we had to show our passports and sign in and out.That night we all huddled around the coal burning furnace in the middle of the dining/living area of the lodge as we ate dinner. We had our first taste of yak meat and it was delicious! Unfortunately it was at this point that Beth started feeling a bit off and was unable to eat or get warm. She went to bed in the hopes that just a good nights sleep would be what was in order. We all followed soon after and I think we were in bed by 8pm, a sign of our exhaustion. We soon realized that once one stepped away from within a one meter radius of the fire things were a little frostier. Bed time: