On Sunday 12th December, the faculty members of the Sifal School set on a journey to Jamacho. It has been a great privilege for me to be part of this trek. We all met at the Deerwalk Complex at 7:00 A.M. and left the venue at 7:30 A.M. Some of our faculty members were supposed to get on the way. Before starting out hiking, we stopped at a local hotel to have breakfast. Then, we headed towards the Fulbari gate. We reached the reserve around 9:15 am. and registered our names at the entrance gate of Jamacho Gumba, which was our final destination, and could be reached from two paths. One was easier with steps while the other was uphill and more difficult. We chose the stairs route.

People say that walking on foot tires them out but when we work hard to get something, the experience we gain gets more valuable. Walking by yourself is nice and peaceful but the real fun of the trip is the smiles and laughter that just makes us forget how tired we really are. Someone wise once said, “The best view comes after the hardest climb “but our hiking was not that difficult yet, I believe we got to see the beautiful mountains, hills and nature at its finest. Narrow sandy land we had trouble walking in, stairless hills which made half of us slip, Gravels and rocky road which made our legs ache and the height stairs to go up a view tower which most of us imagined falling from while climbing down, all made us feel braver and made us feel like we conquered something that day. The difficulty of the hike was average. It had ups and downs but for the most part, it was a shallow slope along the road.

On Sunday the 5th of December, the students of Grade 12 of Deerwalk Sifal School embarked on a journey to Phulchoki for their annual Hiking Program organized by the school. The plan was to take a trip from Godavari to Phulchoki hill. The hiking trail was around 15 km. The students were followed by teachers on their trip. All the arrangements for the hike were done by the hiking club on previous days.

Sundays, which usually means lazy mornings with meaningless Instagram scrolls with half an eye open, the Sunday of October 24 proved to be very different. 17 Deerholders took upon the challenge to hike from Naubise to Chandragiri.

After a lot of anticipation, the day had come for the hike to Tarkeshowr temple. It was a chilly morning and the weather was looking good. Everyone started gathering at Deerwalk Complex at 6:45 AM. We left the college on the bus at 7:30 AM with a lot of excitement and traveled towards our destination for an hour. After we reached there, we searched for a place to have breakfast for about 20 mins and finally found one. At 9:35 AM, we finished our breakfast and started our journey towards the Tarkeshowr temple.

I was fortunate to join a hike with the Deerwalk team, led by Rudra Pandey, on Saturday, October 16. The plan was to begin our hike from Godawari and end in Panauti. We expected the hike to take between 5 to 7 hours to complete. After a cup of tea, a heavy chana and omelette breakfast in Godawari, and some planning, we started walking at approximately 10 am.

On October 3rd, team members of Deerhold Nepal and DWIT hiked to Namo Buddha. The stupa and monastery atop a beautiful hill west of Panauti is home to a legendary tale of a Buddha. A compassionate bodhisattva, storied to be the youngest son of a great king Shingta Chenpo, gave his own body and flesh to feed a hunger tigress and her three cubs. Our short trip wasn’t planned to pay homage to the prince, Semchen Chenpo, yet many of us ended the day feeling perhaps we could be more compassionate like the prince.