Everyone we told about the day's route looked at us like we were crazy. It was a rather audacious path, but we were banking on being trail hardy. I began the day before the sun, by grabbing my sleeping bag and heading out to the porch to watch the sun make its appearance. It was cold, but the sun coming up and making the top of the mountain gold was worth bundling up in my sleeping bag fully zipped.

This was the first day that my hands were cold with my glove liners, so I packed up the poles and shoved my hands in my pockets. We had a long looming distance ahead, which meant we kept a fast pace so it didn't take long to start shedding layers. Our path took us the way we came and led us to Chomrong, the village where we deposited some belongings a few days earlier.

Another motivator was the afternoon clouds and the threat of rain. We managed to make it back to the teahouse with only a few drips of rain falling on us. It's hard to describe the amount of steps, and even the pictures don't quite do them justice. The last push for this day was to descend thousands of stairs, cross a bridge, and then back up to the village.

A treat on the climb up the stairs was a German bakery at the beginning of Chomrong. Walking up stairs is really good at raising the body temperature, so I was looking forward to an iced tea! It didn't take long to suck down that iced tea!

We rolled into the village around 3pm with enough time for my cousin to get a massage. I opted for tea in the main room of the teahouse. After dinner we played a rousing game of 500 Rummy and then rolled into bed. One more day on the mountain!