Written by: Bimarsh Raj Ghimire - 30064, Grade VI
Posted on: 15 December, 2023
On this year's Dashain holiday, I went to Pikey Peak, located in Solukhumbu. It is one of the most popular trekking sites in Nepal. The height of the base camp is 4000 metres, and the full trip lasts about 6 days. To reach the starting point in Solukhumbu, we took a night bus there and spent our first day in a hotel. On the second day, we woke up early, took our breakfast, and headed off to start our journey ahead. Even in the beginning, the view there was amazing, as the road was near the edge of a type of cliff that was very wide. We could see many mountains from a clear view right there. Then, we started walking uphill for about 3 or 4 hours after finally reaching our destination to take lunch. We continued this process of walking for a certain amount of time and then stopping at a place for a break every few hours until finally, about 11 hours from the start, we reached our first destination point, ate dinner, and spent our night there. On the second day, we once again woke up early, took our breakfast, and headed off to start walking. On this day, the view was incredible; the entire sky was purely dark blue with no clouds, as if it were a filter in real life. And on the way, there were so many beautiful and exotic flowers of various colours. We took our first break where there was a small viewpoint from the edge of the hill, took a small break there, and once again continued our journey. Our second stop was at a type of cottage where we ate our lunch and rested for about an hour. Thankfully, she could continue with assistance. On the first day, I did not walk very fast because I took my time, but on the second day, I was bored, so I started walking ahead of everyone, and once they were out of sight, I would wait for them to reach me and then continue on my way. Finally, we reached the last destination before the viewpoint and spent the rest of the evening and night there. On the last day, I woke up at 3 a.m. early in the morning, added up my extra layers of clothes, and headed off to conquer the hill. At first, we reached the top of the wrong hill by accident and had to climb halfway down to get to the other. At first, I was in a large group of people, including the professional hikers who had also come there. And I somehow managed to keep a lead even though my muscles were sore and aching. In the end, even after waiting every 5 minutes for people to catch up so I would not get lost, I managed to keep a record that might even be the world record for climbing from the bottom to the top of the viewpoint in just 58 minutes! The destined time for you to reach there was 1 hour and 30 minutes, so you would reach just a few minutes before daybreak to get the picture for the golden hour. But since I had arrived so early, I got some time to rest. When the sun started rising, I took my gloves off to click the pictures, but then it was so cold that my hands felt so cold that my fingers felt as if they were about to fall off, so I could only take a couple of pictures before my hands felt so cold that I could not even sense them anymore. After this, we were on our way down, but then, suddenly, a dog came out of nowhere and started following us. It went viral for following tourists and leading them to the viewpoint, or the way downhill. Then we gave it some food, and for some reason, it seemed to take a liking to me, and it followed us through the rough and tough path to the first destination. There was a place to rest, but the wind was so strong that it was not just figuratively making us feel like someone was shaking us ever so slightly from the back until eventually we bent. The wind was so strong that it crashed against the tin so hard that it felt as if the house would get blown away by the wind, but thankfully it did not. The dog seemed to live there, as it was also friendly with the owner, and the owner seemed to know him well. But for some reason, the dog was so loyal to me that it kept on following us, I guessed, because rather than just giving it food, I had petted and played with it a little bit. After hours and hours of walking, which they were, after a total of 11 hours with no destinations to stop at, we finally reached a hotel at 4 p.m. There, we all stayed for the night out of exhaustion, and the next day I was probably the only one who could go for a long time out of my family—my father, who had fainted for a slight moment yesterday out of exhaustion—and my mother, whose health was already worsening. So, we woke up early in the morning once again at 3, packed our bags, and headed home back to Kathmandu in a jeep.
