Word: mountainous
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...Bragging Rights and Beauty Rest When I told my boss about my holiday-trekking plans, he grimaced and proclaimed, "It's so dirty." When I informed my friends that I was going to spend 15 days hiking 300 kilometers around one of the Himalaya's most iconic mountain massifs, they told me I was "hard-core." They were all wrong: I discovered that hiking Nepal's Annapurna circuit is almost luxurious?and you can do it alone...
...false economy. Kamal was a font of knowledge about local culture and the unique flora and fauna I would have otherwise overlooked. He showed me how to crack open a type of mud-color river stone to reveal ancient fossils. He also pointed out ragged scars on the mountain flanks caused by landslides that not only destroy villages but take out trekking parties as well. Altitude sickness is another potential killer. I chafed at Kamal's exhortations to go slower, but soon came to heed his warnings. Even after several days' acclimatizing, it was a struggle crossing...
ALTITUDE ADJUSTMENT You don't have to strap on hiking boots to get up close and personal with the mountains. Departing from Kathmandu, many local airlines offer early morning mountain flybys along the Himalayan ridge. Buddha Air sends out two 16-seaters every morning, weather permitting. Each passenger sits beside a window, and as the plane nears Mount Everest, the friendly flight attendant brings each flyer up to the cockpit for a direct prospect. Not that Everest's neighbors are anything to sniff at: the hour-long flight takes in no less than five of the world's tallest peaks...
...more adrenaline-fueled encounters with the mountains, try Sunrise Paragliding's excursions out of Pokhara. The six-year-old British-Nepali partnership (see nepal-paragliding.com) offers a range of aerial experiences. Trek or jeep to a mountaintop and then paraglide down with an instructor. The three-day paratrek has you landing in a different village each night. In one of its most popular activities, parahawking, you follow hawks trained to find elusive mountain updrafts for rides that can last for several hours...
...months after the Aug. 31 attack, it seemed likely that no one would unravel the mystery of why these teachers were targeted on a mountain road leading to the giant Grasberg mine, which is run by P.T. Freeport Indonesia (PTFI), a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. The military blamed the attack on the Free Papua Movement, a ragtag group of Papua rebels fighting a desultory war to free the province from Indonesian rule, but produced scant evidence to back the claim. Meanwhile, relatives of the slain teachers have grown increasingly frustrated by the inability of local...