Good lord what a day this was! Annapurna Base Camp sits at 4,130m, (the highest we were climbing) and what a mission it was to get there. “Summit” day was one of the most challenging days yet, not because it was 3,500 steep stone steps, but because we hit some interesting weather along the way that really tested our desire to make it to our end goal.

The Soundtrack of Summiting: Dig Deep

The day started early as we were expecting it to take about eight hours to get to our final destination. The first part of the day involved crossing quite a few “bridges.” I honestly think the last time I ran across a bunch of rocks to get to the other side (there’s a joke in there somewhere), was when I was 12 years old playing in the creek behind my parents’ house. And even then, it was a creek I was running across not a river with gallons of rushing water per minute that could sweep you away at any moment. It was a solid reminder of how much more respect nature deserves from us.

The views throughout the first part of the day were exactly what I was expecting when I signed up for this adventure. The snowy mountain pass was not too far off in the distance with water from the river rushing loudly beside us as we trekked along.

Everyone seemed to be in a pretty joyous mood as we were passing through all this humbling beauty. The porters even took time to play on the snowy mountainside, climbing up the hill beside the path to slide back down the icy pass.

The weather started to change after lunch though and, that in itself is a pretty incredible thing to witness. From big blue skies one minute to dark grey clouds rolling in over the mountains, completely changing the landscape and sobering up the mood of the morning.

As the heavy clouds rolled in, we prepared ourselves for an unpleasant final two hours in the trek.

And those last two hours, with the rain coming down so hard we could barely see the path in front of us, were very unpleasant. I was cold from the weather but hot from all the layers and from trekking. It was slippery pretty much the whole way up and the snow that we were walking on would give way beneath our feet, making us fall through in spots. It was a slow moving and a very long two hours.

When we finally made it to base camp, the rain changed to snow. And there was nothing to see. The clouds were still too thick and heavy. Tragic, I know. But if there is one thing I learned from this experience, it’s that weather on the mountains is entirely unpredictable. And I am nowhere near as outdoorsy as I like to think I am.

Thank goodness though, after we all made it to the top and warmed up in the dining hall with hot chocolate (yes, hot chocolate at 4,130m) the mountains had one more surprise in store for us. The clouds were dissipating. And we would get a first glimpse of what we had worked so hard to see over the past six days. The Annapurna Mountain Range.

That first glimpse was pretty mind-blowing, even with the leftover greyness in the sky from the storm. But it did not compare to what was in store for us the following morning and even that night when the stars came out. The constellations were all upside down from what I am used to, and there were so many stars in the night sky. As well, the stars just seemed to stop where the mountains “covered” the rest of the sky. It was as if we were in a little bubble on earth.