At a meeting of UT Knoxville's Canoe and Hiking Club, Yost viewed a presentation about group hikes in Nepal's Everest region. He decided to put his three years of accumulated vacation days into a six-week solo tour of Nepal.

"To go with a fully organized trip from the U.S. would cost thousands of dollars more than going independently. Since I prefer independent travel anyway, and since Nepal has a reputation for being a very safe country, I decided to go alone," Yost says.

Yost's preparation included taking practice hikes each weekend in the Smokies carrying progressively heavier backpacks. Even if they don't scale Everest, travelers to Nepal will encounter strenuous hikes to elevations as high as 18,000 feet.

Yost was accompanied in his travels by a guide, Lal, "so I would have someone to walk with and to help carry my stuff. He was constantly bringing me tea and whatever else I needed at the lodges."

Sleeping facilities were more basic than Americans might be used to, Yost says: "The usual accommodations were 'tea-houses' with a large common room lined with sleeping shelves with thin straw mattresses. Heat was usually provided until bedtime by burning yak dung in a stove. Meals were usually served in the same room, and the toilet was usually a shack with a hole in the floor." American-style food was available, but with a Nepalese twist -- pizzas came with yak cheese rather than mozzarella. Typical travel sights included yaks, stupas ("bell-shaped temples representing the Buddha watching over the earth"), mani stones ("inscribed with Buddhist prayers in Tibetan script"), prayer flags, and prayer wheels.

Yost spent the last part of his Nepal trip in a warmer clime, the Annapurna region. "Most of the walking there was through high jungles, with bamboo and monkeys and tropical fruits," Yost says. "It was only cold at the Annapurna Base Camp, which is at 14,000 feet."

He ended his trip with a jungle walk "in territory occupied by quite a few rhinos. Rhinos are very big and the 20-foot high grass is dry, so they make a loud, rustling sound as they move. Occasionally they make a loud snort. Whenever we saw or heard a rhino nearby, we quickly climbed a tree for safety and possibly a view. A rhino will charge anything that moves just to be safe."

Yost says that the trek "is the best thing I have ever done." Arriving in Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries, brought on culture shock. "I felt like I had stepped into one enormous slum, with animals everywhere and crowded, chaotic streets with no names. However, it didn't take long to come to like the place, and to realize that I was perfectly safe there. When I left, I was very sad."

A journal of Yost's trip is on the Internet's World Wide Web at http://www.vic.com/nepal/.