This is a photo of a grass monkey that Bhim made during a rest break along the trail. All along the way, Bhim would pick a few seeds, leaves, stems, or berries for me to smell, taste, or crush to realize, city idiot that I am, what coffee, pepper, licorice, and vegetable dyes look like before I see them in stores.  

Downhill view of Birethanti village. 

This is the lovely young woman who was our server at the restaurant pictured below, in Birethanti. She is 11 years old. 

This was the view from a balcony of a little restaurrant along the trail.  

A wooden platformed suspension bridge over a "rivulet", kindly built by the swiss.  

I think this is my favorite waterfall site. This was a hugely loudly gushing flow of water, but I think it is drowned out (as are many of the images) by the immensity of the landscape's scale. Ironically, Nepalis are very humble about their landscape features. For example, this was routinely referred to as a "rivulet". The very large landscapes we were walking over were called hills, at over 10,000 feet. Nepalis may consider calling that high-ish altitude, or for tourists, requiring aclimitization (meanwhile they are hopping and skipping over the stairs that line these hills). At 15,000 feet, a spot might be high enough to be called a base camp for the beginning real trek to a real mountain. They're funny like that. 

Verdant Waterfall. 

Waterfalls along the trek. 

More of the valley views. 

More of the valley views. 

More of the valley views. 

More of the valley views. 

In this valley shot, you may be able to see some of the terraced farm plots. Besides rice they were full of family garen consumables...tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, gourds, melons, some bananas, and millet. 

Another valley view. This one amazingly has power strung up from here through the remainder of the trek.  

Himalayan Valley View. No, not all views in Nepal include snowcovered mountains.