I am writing this the day before I leave for Nepal. And, depending on when you read this, I have hopefully arrived safely and am either about to begin, or have already begun, a two week trek through the Annapurna portion of the legendary Himalayas. I must admit that packing my bags for this trip was particularly tricky because I’m not only having to pack regular clothes for the days before and after the trek, but I’ll also need to bring my warm, bulky, outdoorsy clothes in preparation for the actual trek. I initially made a big pile of all the “ideal” things I’ll have with me, knowing full well that I’d likely have to make some sacrifices. To start I made sure I had a fresh pair of socks for each day, plenty of underwear, lots of t-shirts, a whole array of different base layers and some extra mid-layers in case some got… stinky. God forbid. But once I began packing things into my bag I found out pretty quickly that my “ideal” list was not going to work. Because, remember, even if I get all this stuff to Nepal, I’m still going to have to lug it around the freaking Himalayas for two weeks. Yes, a porter will be provided to carry one of my bags for me, but I also don’t want to place a burdensome and heavy load on someone else. So I started reading some trekking forums to try to uncover how other people handle these things. And, no surprise, the consensus was… to take as little as possible. Like, a couple pairs of socks, a couple pairs of underwear. A base layer (maybe two). One mid-layer. One outer layer. Forum after forum expressed the same: “you are going to stink, your clothes are going to stink, but everyone around you will also stink, so get over it.” So here I am, feeling completely under-packed, and slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will likely be very unpleasant to be around for a couple weeks… just like everyone else.
"If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it’s lethal." -Paulo Coelho
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