Walking Through Grief to Find Inner Peace

Andrew Yeats

The Falling Down Wake-Up Call

I stand at the base of a vast, snow-covered Himalayan peak, over 6,000 m. The mountain rises above me like an immense cathedral of ice, silent and still. I’ve come here alone, hoping to make my first solo winter ascent and perhaps, in doing so, to understand something of life’s meaning.

With crampons biting into the frozen slope and ice axes in my hands, I climb steadily, one deliberate step at a time. There are no fixed ropes, and no company but the whisper of wind and the crunch of ice beneath my boots. The higher I go, the thinner the air becomes. Each breath burns cold, and my body protests, but I press on.

At last, I reach the summit. I expect some great revelation, a flash of wisdom, a feeling of triumph or clarity, but nothing comes. The world around me is silent. I sit quietly in the snow, surrounded by endless white, and feel a deep sadness, gently weeping to myself.

As I begin to descend, I see a large crack in the ice, tell myself to stop, but can’t. And stepping on the line I plunge into a bottomless abyss. My ice axe is caught on a ledge, and I find myself precariously swinging over a bottomless crevasse with no visible end. My feet disappear into the blackness below. My arms melt into the ice each side of me.

Then something extraordinary happens. As I look up through the crack to the sky, my perspective shifts. I’m no longer in my body but looking down at it from above. The body below isn’t me. I am not Andrew, not the climber, not the roles I once played in life. I feel myself dissolve into the vastness around me, part of the mountain, the air, the light. There is no separation. I am simply a small pulse in an infinite field of being.

In that suspended moment, I understand that life and death are not opposites but different expressions of the same truth. I sense a choice; to move towards a warm, radiant light or to return to the precarious, frail body below. I choose to return, not out of fear, but out of a quiet promise to learn from what I’ve been shown and to live differently.

When awareness returns, I feel light, not in body but in spirit. There’s a sense of inner freedom, a boundless love, a deep knowing that I am part of something far greater than myself. Carefully, I climb out of the crevasse and stand again in the sunlight, my heart full of calm and joy.

That experience changed everything. It became a quiet compass guiding the rest of my life. I returned to the Himalayas many times after that, most often with my beloved wife and soulmate, Cinders.

Cinders The Brightest Light

Cinders, short for Lucinda, is my life’s great companion: wise, funny, endlessly kind, and just a little bit mad in the best way. Now I look back at thirty-two wonderful years together, full of laughter, friendship, and shared adventure. We had always dreamed of completing the Great Himalaya Trail together once the children finished school.

But after a family trek in Ladakh, what we had thought was an IBS gut issue turned out to be stage four bowel cancer. We never saw it coming, and suddenly time became precious beyond words. She died in 2022, 5 years after that trek.

Throughout her illness, Cinders remained selfless, generous, and endlessly loving to others. Even in the hardest moments, she found humour, compassion, and grace. Before she passed, she told me gently to continue with the previous plan we had made together: to trek the Great Himalaya Trail from end to end.

So, I promised her I would and dedicate the journey to her memory.

I decided to make the trek a continuous line of footsteps across Nepal the roof of the world, from Mount Kailash in Tibet to Kangchenjunga on the Indian boarder, raising awareness and support for her chosen charity, Bowel Cancer UK. I knew she would be with me in spirit every step of the way.

Pilgrimage of the Soul from Kailash to Kangchenjunga

Mount Kailash feels the perfect place to begin. It’s one of the world’s most sacred mountains, a symbol of spiritual awakening for Buddhists and Hindus alike. I have always wanted to take Cinders there, and it feels right that our shared pilgrimage should begin in such a place of reverence instead of the Nepal boarder.

The journey will end at Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world, first climbed by our local Cumbrian hero Doug Scott, a man Cinders admired.

The Great Himalaya Trail becomes, Kailash to Kangchenjunga (abbreviated as K2K). A pilgrimage of the soul, walking solo unsupported across the Himalayas to a new beginning of something yet unknown, carrying me through some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes on Earth, and also through the shifting terrain of love, loss, and renewal.

Walking Through Grief

As I walk, I begin to see how grief mirrors the mountains themselves, peaks of light and clarity followed by valleys of dark shadow. There are days when I feel weightless with wonder and others when I feel the pull of deep sadness. But with each step, I learn to let the feelings rise and fall like the weather.

My version of The Great Himalaya Trail / K2K is vast with 2,495 km of wilderness trekking, and 144,176 m of ascent climbing. There is no fixed route. After a while, it feels timeless no beginning, no end, only this rhythm of walking, breathing, and being.

I find comfort in the simplicity of it. The mind settles into the cadence of breath and step. The past loosens its grip, the future fades into irrelevance. There is only the present moment, clear and vivid, surrounded by peaks that seem to breathe with me.

The days are long and often demanding, yet I feel no need for heroics. The mountains are not something to conquer; they are companions, teachers and mirrors. The stillness between each breath becomes as precious as the air itself.

At night, I pitch my tent beneath skies glittering with stars. The cold cuts sharp but carries a strange peace. Even the smallest rituals, lighting the stove, stirring porridge, folding a map, become sacred gestures. The hardship of the journey feels less like struggle and more like devotion, a quiet offering to the trail, to the memory of Cinders, to life itself.

My good times were counterbalanced by inevitable hardships and difficulty along the way. Being above 5,000 m altitude, I was fully aware there is only 50% oxygen than at sea level; so, as my feet sink into deep snow I have to pause for breath after every three steps.

I chose to trek through the winter months but as the temperatures dropped down below -20º C I questioned my sanity camping out alone in the snow. Waking up at 4 am in the morning, absolutely frozen to the bone, pathetically trying to light a gas stove with a broken lighter and violently shivering hands, trying to conjure up some hot porridge to sustain my soul through another long day on the trail.

I vividly remember getting lost in a remote steep forest where the 11 km exit path on my GPS completely disappeared underfoot. Then spending 26 km zigzag bushwacking through deep undergrowth across steep terrain into the darkness at the end of the day, trying to find a non-existent path to safety. Then, above a raging river, taking a 10 m fall down a landslide. My heart skips a beat, my bowel twist and knot, as I stretch out a sweaty palm to catch and hold onto a sticking out boulder on the way down. I’m grateful for only picking up a few blood oozing scratches and bruises, rather than being swept away by the raging white water river below.

Being super cold, getting lost, falling and being a bit scared, is not a comfortable place to be. I have a very strong sense of chastising myself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, making stupid mistakes. But I no longer see these moments as mistakes. They are simply just part of the trek.

Mystical Moments on the Trail

As the weeks turn into months, the trek becomes meditation. I stop seeking meaning and begin to trust the rhythm of my steps. The vastness of the mountains draws me out of myself. My sense of identity, of being a separate self begins to soften.

With each kilometre, I feel less like I’m travelling through the Himalayas and more like I’m being carried by them. The mountains, the rivers, the sky, and I move together.

In that quiet state, I start to sense Cinders all around me. She’s there in the small red robin that flits beside my feet on the trail, in the gorgeous wildflowers that bloom through crevices in the rocks, in the smiles of the villagers who greet me with warmth and kindness.

Over time, the raw grief that once filled me begins to transform, from a heavy ache into a gentle lightness, from sorrow into an inner smile. I think of Thich Nhat Hanh’s words: that nothing and no one ever truly dies; everything simply changes form. For him, the transformation was from a human being into a cloud. For Cinders, perhaps, into a flower, a robin, or a kind smile from a stranger. That thought brings me deep peace.

One morning, as dawn breaks over the mountains, I realise that the inner smile I have felt quietly growing in my heart has reached my face. I laugh at the simplicity of it, this unexpected happiness born of surrender and acceptance.

The Kindness of Strangers

In remote mountain villages, I’m received not as a stranger, but as family. Yak herders and farmers invite me into their homes, where we sit cross-legged around a fire. They feed me endless plates of steaming Dal Bhat and offer me a place to sleep on the floor beside them. Their warmth is effortless, their joy genuine.

Many of these people are Tibetan refugees or Sherpa families living close to the northern border. Their devotion to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and to the Buddhist teachings of compassion and impermanence, shines through in everything they do.

When I stay at monasteries, I listen to the monks speak of suffering as an inevitable part of life, not something to resist, but to understand. They teach that the way to peace lies in compassion, generosity, and loving-kindness towards all beings.

These teachings don’t feel distant or theoretical here; they live in the faces of the people I meet. Their humility and laughter show me how joy can thrive even in simplicity, even in struggle.

Their example helps me understand my own experiences more deeply: the fall into the crevasse, the glimpse of unity beyond the self. It was not a moment of fear, but of profound connection. And here, among these gentle people, I see that truth reflected back daily: that we are not separate, that to give and to love freely is to touch the eternal.

The Inner Smile of Peace

As I continue east, the trek becomes less a journey of distance and more a journey of becoming. The grief that once defined me slowly softens into gratitude. I feel lighter, freer, and content, simply to be part of the unfolding of life.

One day, a villager walks up to me and places a silk scarf around my neck with a smile. Another offers a handful of bright yellow flowers. A monk presses a string of mani beads into my palm as a gift and whispers, “Om Mani Padme Hum.” These small gestures, freely given, feel like blessings.

People tell me there’s a glow about me, a warmth they can’t explain. I smile, not out of pride but gratitude, for I know that what they see is not mine. It is simply the reflection of the love and kindness I have received along the trail.

What the Trail Gave Me

The Great Himalaya Trail, my K2K, became more than a trek. It was a journey through grief, yes, but also a journey toward healing, compassion and peace.

Through it, I came to realise that happiness is not something to seek or win, but something that arises naturally when we stop resisting life. The mountains taught me humility. The people taught me compassion. The journey taught me how to dwell in ‘’fundamental wellbeing” with a sense of inner happiness and peace.

Cinders gave me love; the Himalayas gave me understanding. Together, they revealed the simple truth: that everything is connected, everything changes, and everything, even grief, holds the seed of joy.

The mountains have a way of showing us what we most need to see.

Even if it’s not what we expect.

Instagram: @adventurecheck_   https://www.instagram.com/adventurecheck_/

Facebook: adventurecheck  https://www.facebook.com/adventurecheckcinders/

Utube: adventurecheck  https://www.youtube.com/@adventurecheck_

Cinders Star of Hope Tribute for Bowel Cancer UK: https://cindersnelson.muchloved.com/Gallery/Pictures\

GHT Nepal Agent: Narayan, MacTreks: https://www.greathimalayatrek.com

GPS route planning / tech support: Geoff Moss: nethermostpike@gmail.com

In loving memory of Cinders whose spirit walks with me still.