Bowman Crossing Borders: The Trek: Day 3

In the morning, it looked like the blue skies might win out for our summit day, but, alas, mountain clouds engulfed us again by hiking time.  Since I couldn't see much anyway, I went back to sleep.

It took a while for Mom to hike the six kilometers with 500 meters of elevation gain, so I got quite a nice nap in after Dad propped my head back up with a sweatshirt.  Mom told me later that there were encouraging signs posted along the way to the summit of Sandakphu with slogans like, "Slow and Steady" and "No Sweet without Sweat."

Once we got to the 11,929 foot (3,636 meter) summit of Sandakphu, we really hoped to see more of the Himalayas, but everything was foggy and chilly.  Dad took advantage of the respite to join in on a game of Indian army volleyball.

After the volleyball, we still had much of the afternoon to fill.  We hiked another two kilometers or so to a hut of a family of yak ranchers.  Inside, we were treated to warm yak's milk, and a super friendly kid kept wanting Dad to take his picture and show it to him.  It was fun to play with him while we listened to the rain pick up outside.  It was not fun to have to hike back out of their house in what turned into a Himalayan hail storm.  Fortunately, Dad let us use his rain jacket so Mom could mostly keep me dry, and I fell asleep again.

Still with no sign of the snow-capped peaks, we went to to bed after a dinner of popcorn (yes, popcorn in a dark and very microwave-free trekking hut kitchen) and chow mien for everyone but me, we went to bed, hoping that the name of our hut meant that tomorrow morning would bring the clear skies.