Last year, I walked the Poon Hill trail in Nepal with my friends. Poon Hill is often seen as a little more than a checkpoint en route to bigger treks such as Annapurna Base Camp and beyond. This is an attempt, a reflection, a love letter, if you will, to the Himalayas and to the unspoken pilgrimage I found in what most consider to be an ‘easy’ trek.
For as long as I can remember, I have always felt an affinity for mountains, especially the Himalayas. I have often wondered where this fondness stemmed from. Maybe it was in my faith, where nature and divinity are interwoven, perhaps the devotional hymns I learned as a child and sang in worship, ingrained in my subconscious the Himalayas as devabhumi , a sacred abode, more than just a landscape. Or maybe it was simply a natural connection to the pancha bhutas (five fundamental elements). Whatever its source, that longing followed me up the stone steps of Poon Hill.
