Trekking in the Himalayas: Six Unexpected Truths.

So Im pretty sure my knees will never be the same again, but I did it. I trekked the Three Passes. And despite swearing blind that I wouldnt go rogue, I did it without the aid of a guide or porter.

Thats three wintery weeks of traipsing through the Himalayas, navigating trails, carrying my own equipment and generally being a badass (albeit an exhausted one). Do I sound proud of myself? I am. #SorryNotSorry

The trek took me over three of the highest mountain passes in the world and encompassed a trip to Everest Base Camp, along with an unexpected detour to Ama Dablam Base Camp and two trekking peak summits. Thats a whole world of uphill struggle.

The expedition met expectations in terms of being an awesome challenge and adventure. But it also went a little further and detonated some unforeseen truth bombs too. So without further ado, here are the six unexpected realities that struck me while up in thin air.

1) Im not quite as burly as I thought.

My mother claims Ive always thought of myself as bigger and tougher than I actually am. A pig-headed human suffering from small dog syndrome, if you will. It took three weeks of hauling a 17kg backpack over the Himalayas for me to finally realise shes right. That bag absolutely crucified me.

By the end of the first day, my hips had been rubbed raw and my bum felt strangely strained. To distract myself and keep plodding forward, I got into the habit of reciting a weird number-chant in my head, which sounded oddly like Count von Count from Sesame Street. 1-aha-aha-aha-2-aha-aha-aha.

Im not sure if I grew fitter over the weeks, or just wearier. But by the third high mountain pass, I was reduced to a staggering, floundering wreck who crumpled to the ground after every third step. Eventually I was valiantly relieved of my backpack 10 minutes from the top by a far burlier friend, and left totally emasculated.

Carting one-third of your body weight over a mountain at altitude is a great reminder that you are not, in fact, He-Man.

2) Water is terribly inconvenient.

Its vital to drink at least 5 litres of water per day in the mountains in order to stay vaguely hydrated and ward off altitude headaches. Sound straightforward? Its not. Firstly you have to carry the stuff, and one litre of water weighs one excruciating kilo. Sigh.

You also need to constantly worry about both sourcing and sterilizing it. I gladly refilled my bottle from all sorts of questionable places; village pumps, waterfalls and stagnant barrels. I got used to the floating debris in my bottle but struggled to remember to administer purifying tablets, which is pretty crucial to not dying. Unhappily, the chemical imparts a vastly unpleasant taste that no effervescent tablet can disguise.

But worse still is the arduous task of physically forcing 5 litres of chemical-water down your throat. When its bone-achingly cold, you arent often too enthusiastic about ingesting cold liquids and its nearly a relief when your hydration pack freezes and youre spared the ordeal. *cue headache*

3) Im not good at being cold.

This one shouldnt really be a shock; I tend to spend Irish winters in a semi-hibernative state, cocooned in multiple hoodies and glued to the radiator. But I now realise that five degrees is tropical compared to winter temperatures in the high Himalayas. Pretty much everything above a certain altitude freezes solid; taps, lakes, condensation on the window, toilet bowls, rivers, the lot.

Every evening at various teahouses, I huddled around a dried yak dung fire, dreading the moment Id have to climb into my glacial sleeping bag. At night, I lay swaddled in layers of fleece and down, trying to convince myself that I didnt need to extract myself and journey to the sub-zero toilet/hole in the ground.

De-layering is hazardous after all; one fellow trekker went for a pre-dawn climb without proper gloves (while I flapped around in three pairs!) and ended up with a frostbitten, blistered set of hands. Case closed! Human beings simply arent built to function at -20 degrees. Or at least Im not.

4) Toilet humour is life.

Everyone relieves themselves; its an unavoidable part of life. And when you travel, you accept that you will occasionally find yourself squatting in some pretty gritty places. But the super-basic facilities in the Himalayas seriously challenges the threshold of that endurance.

Youre faced with the trials of outdoor long-drop holes in the ground, mounds of frozen poo, people failing to flush because the barrel of flush water has frozen over, people evacuating their bowls in curious places (because the designated spot is presumably too disgusting), more mounds of frozen poo. The list is endlessly graphic.

So naturally, the best coping mechanism is finding the whole thing side-splittingly hilarious. And I did, I really oddly did. I wasnt alone either; there were many questionable evenings spent with trekking friends, exchanging shit-based horror stories and laughing maniacally. Toilet tales are therapy for the traumatised outdoor enthusiast. That should be on the cover of Lonely Planet.

5) Mountain air addles your brain.

A lot of the ancient cultures believe that their gods live among the mountain tops. And after spending three weeks in one of the highest, remotest places on earth, I totally get it. Gods are usually renowned for being mad bastards after all.

But its more than just that; the air is different up there. In the midst of all the hardship and lung problems, I often caught my brain taking a time-out from logic to act like a stoner. Yes Ciara, your feet are swollen beyond recognitionbut man, is the sky blue!

My normal-person thoughts were totally jumbled by altitude. The surrounding mountains turned into watchful sentries; all-knowing snow-capped giants with the power to both enchant and punish. It was both the middle of nowhere and the middle of everywhere all at once. If Id actually bumped into a god hanging out on a glacier, I mightve felt saner.

The oxygen-starved mind can be a peculiar, trippy place. Proceed with caution.

6) Lip balm is essential to survival.

Mishaps are a fundamental part of life in the Great Outdoors, and I found myself in plenty of minor scrapes. I got knocked arse-first into a waterfall by a startled yak. I fell through the ice while crossing a frozen river and was plunged-thigh deep into freezing water. I spent hours crossing a frozen glacier pockmarked with treacherous crevasses, and enjoyed every second of occasionally face-planting while trying to tiptoe across the ice.

But the real horror took place in the middle of a murderous ascent, when my precious Vaseline fell from my pocket and tumbled 200m downhill. Im pretty obsessive about lip balm at the best of times, but a desert WILL begin to grow on your face should you neglect to moisturise your lips at altitude.

This was a genuine catastrophe. I was preparing to hurl myself headfirst after the Vaseline when a porter suddenly appeared below and kindly rescued the treasured goods.

The biggest lesson of all? Its all fun and games until your lubricant falls off a mountain.

*Article originally appeared on www.flightoftheflibbertigibbet.com .