The sun is out now and warm on my face. I take off my shoes and wet socks and let my wrinkled toes breathe. I sit down and take a deep breath, filling my lungs with crisp mountain air. I am exhausted but feel triumphant, inspired by the resilience I’ve seen among the women of the Himalayas who navigate these rugged terrains every day.

I have been walking steadily for the past couple of hours, climbing a steep uphill, lugging my trekking bag that is completely drenched from the downpour of the day before. When I took a bus from Kathmandu to Salleri, the headquarters of the Solukhumbu district, a week before, I had no inkling of the adventure that awaited me. I had come here to report on a story, but here I was: perched on top of a ridge, wrapping up a two-day hike through forests, waterfalls, and a thunderstorm.

But from where I sit, I see a valley of pine trees, neatly stacked in lines one after the other under a fresh blue sky. There is a quietness in the air that you can only find in the mountains, and I am glad I did the hike. Just then, however, my dream gets interrupted. An airplane comes into the picture out of nowhere, first the size of a tiny bird, and then becoming bigger and bigger as it comes closer. It feels as though it is coming right at me and roars as it flies just a few meters above me and heads towards the airport in Lukla. I let out an audible gasp.

Suma Sherpa laughs at my reaction. She’s used to airplanes swooshing above her home here in Lukla. She has lived here her whole life, all six decades. In fact, she’s older than the airport itself, which started operations only in 1971.

“Sometimes during peak season, when the weather is good, almost 50-60 planes come in a day!” she says. 

Lukla, which is the gateway to the Everest region, is touted as one of the most dangerous airports in the world, and I see why. I have a flight to catch out of Lukla to Kathmandu in a couple of days, and I am already nervous. 

Suma herself has never taken a flight in her life, and perhaps never will. She is a Sherpa woman, native to the region, and was born in Lukla. She has lived her whole life here and worked primarily as a farmer. Now, she is too old to do so, and her sons’ wives do the toiling, she says. Her husband died a long time ago, and all her sons work as trekking guides. With her sons, their wives, and children, Sherpa has nine members in her family to feed. Although she can’t work the fields, she’s the one in charge. 

And this is often the case. During my travels to rural communities in the mountains of Nepal and in the plains as a journalist, I have found that this is a common phenomenon: the men are forced to stay away from home to make money and the women are bound to take charge of the house and the family – a responsibility that is by no means easy, especially when new challenges like the Covid-19 crisis and climate change have disrupted life recently. 

“It’s been two continuous years that we’ve had poor production in our fields. Last year was really difficult for us to sustain ourselves, especially with Covid-19 putting all three of my sons out of a job. This year too, things look grim for us,” she tells me. 

Before walking to Lukla, I had been walking around Solukhumbu, talking to women like Suma. I am writing about the effects climate change has had on mountainous communities in the Everest region in regards to agriculture. I focus on agriculture because, apart from tourism and mountain climbing, it is the region’s main source of sustenance.

Farming at an altitude that starts from around 2,000 meters above sea level is not easy. The Everest region is particularly tricky because the weather is notoriously unpredictable – sunny one minute and pouring the next, especially in the lower regions in this mountainous district.

To give you an example, just a few days ago, I was in Pattale, a small village downstream. The morning was sunny, but by noon the rain started pattering, just as Purna Maya Magar finished heating up some rilduk for me in her home. The kitchen fire has warmed the entire room and the smell of burning firewood and the timmur from the rilduk linger in the air. Rilduk is a traditional Sherpa dish made by mashing and pounding potatoes until they acquire a thick, chewy texture. They are then molded into small balls and cooked into a warm, hearty stew, making it the perfect meal for chilly evenings. 

Almost every family makes rilduk here. It is the perfect dish to eat, especially in the cold. The potatoes fill you up and the thick soup and timmur keeps the body warm. 

But rilduk is not the only dish Magar makes from potatoes. She uses potatoes in almost everything she makes — meat and vegetables, even adding it into flour to make aloo roti, which she eats with ghee and chilli paste. 

“No meal is complete without potatoes in these cold regions. Once winter sets in, we’ll have little else to depend on besides potatoes,” said 46-year-old Magar, a resident of Pattale, Solukhumbu. 

Potatoes are a staple food crop here in the village of Pattale in Solukhumbu district, much like everywhere else in the mountains of Nepal. And its importance in the diets of the locals cannot be stressed enough. The humble potato is hardy and grows easily, providing mountainous communities with a steady source of nutrition throughout the year. But the crop is under serious threat owing to erratic rain patterns. 

A little higher up, in Phaplu, the situation is similar. 

“Last year, the drought decimated our potato harvest,” said 72-year-old Doma Lama. “Even the year before, potato production wasn’t that great.” 

She too, like Suma, is now too old to work in the fields now, so her younger son and his wife tend to their potatoes. Her elder son is in Malaysia, working at a construction site. Lama herself has never left Phaplu and has witnessed changes in the climate firsthand.

Such instances of erratic rain and extreme weather events, like heat waves, storms, and droughts, are becoming more frequent and intense over the years, threatening every aspect of human life. This reality is more stark in the Himalaya. And the brunt is often faced by women like Doma and Suma, who are actually living the harsh reality of the climate crisis without having any role to play in it. 

Being under the shadow of Everest, the mean temperature rise in this region has been higher than the global average. According toa report by ICIMOD, from 1951 to 2010, while the global average temperature rise was 0.6 degrees Celsius, it was 1.5 degrees Celsius in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. Otherstudies on temperature trends in Nepal have also identified more of an increase in annual mean and annual maximum temperature at higher altitudes than that of at lower altitudes. 

And this change is already being felt by locals across the region, particularly as you gain elevation.  

A few hours’ walk from Namche Bazaar is the beautiful village of Khumjung. Days in April in the village of Khumjung in the Sagarmatha National Park are blissful. Stone houses and fields are tidily lined up on either side of stone pavements and there’s an uninterrupted view of some of the world’s most beautiful mountains — the Lhotse, Ama Dablam and Thamserku. 

Khumjung doesn’t necessarily fall on popular trails like the Everest Base Camp trail and the trek to Gokyo Ri and thus doesn’t have many trekkers coming its way. With few trekkers, business for lodge owners is limited here, so the men mostly work as porters and guides and the women stay back to take care of the house and work in the fields.

But there is not much to do in the fields during these months either as it is not planting season yet. For now, the women spend their days cutting grass and collecting leaves in the nearby forests to feed the cattle.

“My granddaughter goes to the forest almost every day and brings the grass to feed our cattle. Without it, we have nothing to feed our cattle,” says Pema Sherpa, 66, a resident of Khumjung, who runs a small souvenir shop. 

As is evident, no matter where you go, it is only the women and children staying back in most villages – living with harsh living conditions day in and out, displaying a silent resilience nobody really talks about. In many ways, I see a glimpse of my own mother in the women of Everest: strong, loving, and unwavering, working hard to put food on the table every day without any glory or repayment. 

When we talk about the Everest region, we see the place from the lens of a trekker or a mountaineer. The region’s mountains, lush pine forests, and gushing white rivers are magnificent no doubt but its people – particularly these women – is what make a place beautiful, a home. 

Back in Lukla, after I bid goodbye to Suma, I look for myself a lodge with a hot shower. After changing into the last remaining pair of dry clothes I have, I head out for a light walk around the small settlement. 

I find some local chyyang and aloo roti with gheu and chilli paste, which is an absolute must-try dish, at a small joint. I get talking to the woman running the small joint. I don’t ask her name. She’s not from Solukhumbu, but from neighboring Okhaldhunga, and is here in Lukla to make some money. She tells me her woes: how the rent is skyrocketing in Lukla and if she had received an education, perhaps her life would be different, but this is the life she’s received and she’s the best she can. 

I tell her my story briefly too. About being a journalist, how I came to Solukhumbu to follow a story. I then tell her about my adventure: of how I ended up heading to a place called Khari Khola from Salleri but got dropped midway because a landslide obstructed the path and the jeep could not go any further. How I had then walked through leech-ridden forests completely alone in the middle of a thunderstorm for five hours until I reached the place. Only to walk another 10 hours the next two days to reach Lukla.  

If you’re wondering, the trail is absolutely beautiful with lush forests and gorgeous waterfalls. As most people fly straight to Lukla, the trail is mostly abandoned and you will only meet locals occasionally on the way.  Kharikhola stands charismatic to anyone who is passing through.

It was my first solo travel experience in the mountains and I was ecstatic sharing my details. I don’t know if the woman at the tiny eatery understood my excitement or my job, but she listened attentively and kindly. As I left, I felt grateful for the delicious aloo roti and her company, and hoped the days that followed were kind to her too.

The morning after, as I left on a plane with other nervous tourists, I left with a happy ache in my heart and the wish to come back again. This time with no story to pursue but just to embrace the beauty of the place, its people, and to witness more of the strength and spirit of the women of the Himalayas.