(By Michal Lenden)

The Himalayas have a way of humbling you. Not with grandeur, but by handing you blisters the size of grapes and then laughing while you limp. When my friend Dave—a man whose life choices include tattooing his WiFi password on his arm—pitched Khopra Ridge as a “quiet, soulful escape,” I should’ve known better. But there we were: Dave, Sarah, Emma, and me, crammed into a jeep bouncing toward Nepal’s Annapurna region. Our gear? A drone Dave swore would “capture the soul of the mountains,” Sarah’s selfie stick (blessedly forgotten in Pokhara), and Emma’s apocalyptic stash of snacks. Our souls? Questionable.

Day 1: Pokhara to Tadapani

Ten minutes into the hike, my $200 “waterproof” boots split like overcooked bratwurst. Dave’s ultralight backpack burst open, catapulting protein bars into a ravine. “It’s cool,” he said, watching his lunch vanish. “I’m intermittent fasting anyway.” Sarah, our Instagram shaman, paused every five minutes to photograph moss. “This is giving ~ethereal woodland nymph~,” she said, as I dabbed sweat off my neck with a sock. By midday, Raj, our guide, muttered, “You walk like drunk yaks,” which felt accurate. At a teahouse, a Sherpa granny handed me chai with a smirk. “You city people walk like wounded chickens,” she said. I sipped the tea, which tasted like shame and cardamom. When I asked her how long she’d lived there, she waved a hand at the peaks. “Long enough to know mountains don’t care about your plans.” That night, Emma taught the granny’s granddaughter to play Uno by headlamp. The kid destroyed us. “I like this game,” she said, swiping Dave’s last Snickers. “It’s like life. You steal things.”

Day 2: Tadapani to Bayeli

My blisters evolved into sentient beings. Sarah’s phone died mid-caption about “mindful living.” “This is karma for my Amazon addiction,” she groaned. Emma, our Snack Warlord, swapped gummy bears for CBD oil. “For altitude anxiety,” she said, though we all knew it was for Dave’s acoustic Wonderwall. Halfway down, a monk materialized like a mirage. His robes were pristine; ours looked like we’d wrestled a yak. “Why climb?” he asked. Dave grinned: “For the ’gram!” The monk chuckled. “Even Buddha needed a motive.” He then offered Sarah a mantra: “Om mani padme ~humble yourself~.” That afternoon, we met a farmer repairing a stone wall. “You help?” he asked. Dave tried. The wall collapsed. The farmer laughed so hard he cried. “You,” he said, handing Dave a potato, “stick to dancing.”

Day 3: Bayeli to Khopra Ridge

The Himalayas trolled us with fog thicker than Dave’s denial about his receding hairline. “Is this Narnia or a Stephen King novel?” Emma muttered. Dave’s drone buzzed like an angry hornet until it kamikaze’d into a yak. The yak chewed it thoughtfully, then spat it out. “Even yaks hate influencers,” I said. At the ridge, a shepherd’s dog plopped beside me, side-eyeing my Cliff Bar. “Sorry,” I whispered. It sighed, as if to say, You’re hopeless. We split the bar. That night, over lentil soup, Raj told us about his brother, a porter who carried a fridge to Everest Base Camp. “Why?” Emma asked. Raj shrugged. “Tourists pay. Mountains don’t judge.”

Day 4: Khopra Ridge to Khayer Lake

Khayer Lake was billed as a “spiritual vortex.” What we got was a puddle with an existential crisis. Sarah cried. “I wanted aura photos,” she wailed. Dave, ever the intellectual, admitted he’d never read a book. “Audiobooks count, right?” An old herder tossed me a wrinkled apple. “Eat. You look like a ghost.” It tasted like hope. And dirt. On the way back, Emma tripped into a nettle patch. “I’m ~one~ with nature now,” she hissed, scratching her legs raw. That evening, a group of kids challenged us to soccer. Dave scored an own goal. The goalpost was a ya

Day 5: Swanta to Ghandruk

Ghandruk was supposed to be a victory lap. Instead, I tripped over a toddler and became the village jester. Dave taught locals the Macarena. Sarah hugged a goat. “It gets me,” she said, swaying after three shots of raksi. A grandmother yanked my ear. “You laugh too much. Good.” For the first time in years, I didn’t check my phone. Later, Raj pointed to a landslide scar on the hillside. “Last monsoon,” he said. “Took three houses. Two cows.” When I asked how they rebuilt, he shrugged. “We carry rocks. Same as always.”

Epilogue

Khopra Ridge didn’t fix me. It didn’t need to. It just reminded me that joy is a verb, silence isn’t scary, and sometimes a judgmental dog is the best therapist. The mountains don’t care about your deadlines or your WiFi signal. They just are. And maybe that’s the point—to be small, messy, and gloriously, stupidly alive. The shepherd’s dog followed me home. My therapist is thrilled.

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