Three Sisters

From what I gather from returning trekkers, most of the Himalayan hiking trails are uneven rock and boulder steps, like the Peace Pagoda path on steroids - not the ideal for hiking. That coupled with the heat factor gives reason for second thoughts about a porter on my trek, and as a friend pointed out, you're creating employment for the native population.

“No problem I can get you a good guide, been in mountains many times, from good family,” my hotel-trekking company owner promised. Everyone is a guide, was a guide or owns a trekking company in Nepal.
“I really don't want to trek with a man, are there any women guides?”
He looked horrified, like I had just slapped his dog and spanked his kids.

“Women are not good guides, they aren't strong and can't carry the weight. They want to turn around when it gets hard,” he said convincingly, the same argument as the Kathmandu hotel owner. In fact, every man I had asked about a female guide or porter wrinkled up their face to say, “Are you crazy hiring a woman?”

However, I have yet to see a man in this Nepalese society carry the weight of a basket on his back filled with firewood equal in size to a small redwood forest, and up narrow clay paths. In fact, I hadn't seen a man do any of the hard labor women were expected to do daily. I had recently seen several women carrying large baskets of rocks back to their village and when I point this out to the hotel guide service man, he tells me I can't hire a villager woman because she doesn't carry the baskets far. Aparrently, there's a collective Nepali male denial similar to mass hysteria.

It's not that I have anything against men... I adore them. But after a few hours in anyone's company, I'm ready to come up for air so to spend two weeks with a man I didn't even know was not my idea of solitude exploration conducive to writing. At the Moondance Cafe, I ask an American living in Pokhara about women guides.

“Oh, all the men tell you that because they see women coming into the trekking business as a threat,” she confirmed my suspicion. She directed me to the north end of the village, just past the clutch of tourist spots where the road becomes dust to Three Sisters Adventure Trekking and Guest House. Native women were working their daily chores in the rice paddies along the lake. It was quiet and local - hens clucking, kittens mewing, dogs barking, cows lounging and kids sharing games, kites and swings hung from tall bamboo trees. In a building next door to the guest house a sign read “Empowering Women of Nepal.”

The sister at the desk was Nicky, of Lucky, Dicky and Nicky Chhetri, who explained they had started the school next door, guest house and trekking company to allow disadvantaged women a chance to create their own productive lives with a trade and education. We went over the itinerary for my trek - twelve to fourteen days with a porter-cum-guide, a woman who has completed her initial one month guide course, first aid classes, with several different treks under her feet as a porter guide-in-training but who is not yet completely guide certified. The fees were $15 per day plus round trip transportation to the trail head (about $70).

Later in the day I meet my trek sister, Dhanu, who is twenty. Her English is somewhat difficult, she is soft spoken and not boisterous as some of the other guides who are wildly chattering with their assigns. This is a good thing for someone needing the solitude of the trek and freedom to hear silence. I book a room at Three Sisters for Sunday night as we leave early Monday for our drop off in Phedi.

Back at Hotel Grand Holiday, the half dozen men always hanging around the front desk drinking tea go wide eyed, shaking their heads in horror as I tell them I've booked a female porter-guide. In the morning, the Three Sister's taxi picks up my gear, serves a fine breakfast and shows me to the newly cleaned room. The ceilings are high with a fan, teak doors and floors that shine and tea service on a table covered with a Nepalese embroidered cloth. There's a real bed, not a foam mattress on a homemade platform, and the view is of tall, tree covered hills with rice paddies at their feet... the lake view is unobstructed directly across the road. There's a noticeable difference of a woman's touch in decor and warmth - real artwork on the spotless walls instead of barren, clean furniture, thoughtfully arranged for ambiance. I feel at home.

In tomorrow's first light, Monday, October 6, I'll be on my way to the snowy bowls of Annapurna and Machhupuchhre. I take with me a piece of all of you, Crested Butte, as well as offerings and red prayer flags for our Red Lady mountain to hang in the presence of clouds, wind and spirits to ask for her salvation from the money hungry mining moguls that would destroy her and our community.
Namaste.
Visit their website to learn of the programs, orphanage and amazing projects these sisters have provided: http://www.3sistersadventure.com