Rising early in the mountains is never a chore for me. Instead it is a real treat for the senses. The air is pure, the sounds crisp, and the light is soft and fleeting. The sun was yet to crest the ridge as I threw on my down jacket to ward off the pre-dawn chill. I stepped outside to capture some photos. The wind was whipping snow off the peach colored peaks which were receiving the new light of day. In minutes the landscape would change before my eyes, a recurring theme that would not end.

I walked back to the lodge as smoke billowed gently from the wood-fired kitchen, reveling in life's apparent simplicity. Peering into the dark kitchen I could see a Nepali Ama, or grandmother, nestled next to the fire nurturing it to life while her daughter pounded flour, beat eggs, and tried to stay warm.

Initially, for an outsider, life in the villages seemed simple, remote and lost in time. After a few days on the trail I began to realize the vast network of different people all working and living together to make life possible in the mountains. Most of the terrain we passed through was raw and strikingly beautiful, yet it was an unforgiving landscape where survival depended on communities linked together by a social and economic network.

The donkey trains zigzagged along numerous paths and bridges carrying everything from tools, clothing and even beer for the tourist trade up into the remote mountain villages. Meanwhile the local rice, corn, and millet were harvested from the high mountain plateaus to be sold at markets down in the valley below. The burdens of this trade were borne on the backs of whole villages. Each villager played a vital role in the system depending on their caste, trade, and heritage. This network was visible in the people everywhere we went, a common thread through a country of 70 languages and over 70 castes. The simplicity of it all dissipated amid a complex pattern of sustainability and constant community cooperation.

For an outsider, life in the mountains became dualistic, neither simple nor complicated, it just took time to fully comprehend all that went into sustaining life in the Himalayas.