Crossing a foot-bridge

Chhimi has made friends with a Tibetan refugee family, and we are invited into their house — one of the few at this altitude — for lunch. We sit on the floor and are served yak-butter tea. It is revolting; Pema grins as we try not to spit it out."Ha! It is made from yak butter, a tea leaf, and salt," he says. "Not many trekkers like it, but it is our tradition."

The living layer is one big room with thick wooden floorboards and sliding wooden shutters over the glassless windows. At one end is a stack of sleeping mats. A tall dresser separates the room and serves as an altar; seven small bowls full of holy water are placed before a shrine. Black-and-white pictures of the king are pasted onto the walls, dried meat and chilies hang from a wooden beam, and a low iron stove fueled by dung lets out feeble heat.

A young girl wearing a yak-wool vest and pink pants watches us eat; we offer her an apple and she takes it, openmouthed, then darts away with her prize.

Jangothang base camp, under Chomolhari

And so, three days after leaving Drukgyel Dzong, we arrive at Jangothang base camp. Nado and Chhimi have already pitched our tents in the shadow of the giant pyramid of Chomolhari. From here the choices are multiple: Trekkers can continue over the 4,890-m pass of Nyile La toward Thimphu or Laya, turn east over the remote and spectacular Bhonte La, or retrace the Paro Chhu.

For now, our focus is simple. We wait for the swirling clouds to settle and prepare for the view we have traveled across continents to see. As the moon rises, Chomolhari shows herself. She is so close and so big that we have to crane our necks backward, staring thousands of feet up to the summit. This, then, is the sight that makes Jangothang the most spectacular campsite in the whole Himalaya: the sight of the Goddess in her nightgown.

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