Recently my family and I travelled to Nepal to trek to Mount Everest Base Camp. It was a trip we had been planning for almost two years and it was one of the best adventures a family with teenagers could do together. 

We started our journey in the bustling streets of Kathmandu as we sorted our last minute supplies for the trek. Flying into Lukla airport was the start of an incredible journey, an opportunity to meet people from a totally different walk of life and live with them in their tea houses along the trail. We were always welcomed with smiling faces and kept warm sitting around the stoves in their dining rooms, before climbing into our -40 sleeping bags to rest up for another day of living our dream. 

Each day was better than the one before and the highlight was reaching Base Camp after nine days, followed by a gruelling climb up Kala Patthar, over 5500m as to get the best view of Everest. The downhill journey was just as challenging as the uphill one when we got a large dumping of snow, transforming the landscape into a snowy wonderland. Our Sherpas and porters were incredible and showed us one of the most beautiful places on earth, just like New Zealand only everything was so much bigger and more impressive. As New Zealanders, having Sir Edmund Hillary so firmly in our hearts it was touching to visit the towns and see what a difference he has made to the people of Nepal. 

We knew that we had to be prepared for anything as Nepal was heading into winter while we were trekking. Stocking up on True Fleece products was the best thing we could have done. Beanies and neck warmers kept us warm and the base layers and mid layers were amazingly versatile to cope with hotter days than we expected and colder days than you could imagine. The products wear exceptionally well too and coped with multiple days of wear in a row - actually make that almost two weeks of wear - and stayed really fresh in spite of some hard days on the tracks and no showering. True Fleece gear was light to carry, easy to wear and looked amazing too. We’ll definitely be bringing True Fleece on our next trip to the Himalayas.