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I finished climbing up to the cave, really just an enormous overhang in the rocks, huffing and puffing. The altitude, coupled with my lack of physical conditioning, highlighting my weakness. Of course, the fact that I had just basically jogged through a mountain valley wearing a small pack in knee deep snow hadn’t helped matters. Leaning up against the rocks, greedily sipping water from my pack, I took in the view of the valley as the morning sun lit it up in spectacular fashion, the heavy snowfall from the previous two days now a pristine blanket. A giant *crack!* like a shot from the largest .22 rifle ever created, split the air and my head snapped up from my drinking and my thoughts. A moment later, it came. The low rumble, building louder as the energy trapped in a rock face found a release, as boulders as big as desks freed themselves from the canyon walls above. The rumble grew until it seemed as though it was the only sound filling the valley. Rocks, boulders and scree cascaded down the mountain side in a small rock slide that seemed much larger than it must have been. The rocks tumbled down and rolled across the sides and floor of the gorge, coming to a rest just short of the trail I had been on not 10 minutes before. I turned to my guide who cracked a wry “I told you so” grin. "Now you know why I didn't want to stop on the path." He said. That's why I need relationship with locals wherever I travel. Every expedition, no matter the destination or the length, occurs on two fundamental levels, the internal and the external. From preparation and choosing equipment to execution to walking through the door to home at the end, we must insure that the things we desire to achieve in our hearts, can be carried out by our bodies and that the two inform one another honestly. If we only focus on one of these to the exclusion of the other, we will surely fail. That's why I love to travel, especially in Nepal. It is a beautiful, harsh, chaotic, welcoming, economically poor, communally rich place that forces me to plan for every contingency and bludgeons me into acceptance when things don't quite go as planned. (And nothing *ever* goes a planned in Nepal.) The mountains test my body, while the locals teach me how to build up my soul. It was the Himalaya that first drew me to Nepal, but it is the people that bring me back again and again. Being a mountaineer from a young age, I grew up reading stories of climbing in the Himalaya, and I wanted to see, to walk in them, myself. To be surrounded and reminded that my place in the universe, while important, was tiny compared to the wonder of nature and the beauty of our home, the Earth. But what I was not prepared for was the power of relationship bigger than Chomolunga; Mount Everest. Chandra Rai has been my Sardar, my trek leader, on three of my four trips to Nepal. He is a servant-leader. Always caring for the slowest members of the group (often me!), always offering his hand in support, always trying to insure that his Western guests stay healthy by making sure they have clean water to drink and healthy food to eat. He puts everyone else first, and himself last. He is relentlessly pleasant, with a gentle smile and a tiny touch of mischief in his eye, he teaches me about the mountains. But I learn more about being a human person from him. Chandra is more than a paid guide. While he makes his living trekking, if he takes you on as a client, you become family. He has invited me and other trekkers into his home to share a meal and to meet his family, a very intimate statement in Nepali culture. The challenges of life are many and varied, and there is much we cannot change. Perhaps the greatest gift of travel is that we meet people who help us learn how to navigate the terrain within hearts.