Annapurna base camp

When I was packing for Nepal back in June, I was aware that I'd have little time for leisure but - in an obvious wishful thinking - I still put in my hiking boots and clothes. I've not had many opportunities to use them so far; but now that the emergency phase finished, work pace slowed down, I changed organisation and the biggest country-wide festival, Dashein, hit Nepal in mid-October and all the offices closed for an entire week, the one thing that was clear to me was that I WANTED TO GO TO THE MOUNTAINS.

Finding a hike for only one week doesn't actually seem all that easy in Nepal, especially if you want to avoid the crowds (which after Torres del Paine we definitely wanted) - it's the 2, 3 or 4-week itineraries that abound. Eventually we dug out this slightly obscure trek in the Annapurna conservation area, got all the permits and in spite of the fuel crisis managed to reach Pokhara.

The fuel crisis continues - and banners such as this one started to appear around Nepal protesting against Indian interference

Being prudent people though, in Pokhara we cross-checked with a few guides and agencies if our selected trek makes sense... well, I'm not going to go into details, but with keywords along the lines of "not recommended without guide", "not easy to find path", "people lost" we eventually ended up rushing to a bookstore after dark to buy a new hiking map... to head for one of the most popular Nepal treks: the Annapurna base camp, or Annapurna sanctuary.

(In our defence, a major reason was that - in spite of the high season - only a quarter of the usual number of tourists have shown up in Nepal.)

I had practically no idea about this trek before, apart from the obvious assumption that you would see the Annapurna. Now, after coming back and looking at the guides, I can say that studying them wouldn't have been of much use anyway. Rather than talking at length about in which guesthouse to take a cup of tea, what they should tell you is:

1) Steps. Steps steps steps steps steps. Be mentally prepared for an absolutely interminable quantity of steps ahead of you.

Even worse, the steps are distributed in a particularly malicious manner - when you've conquered 500 vertical metres of stairs up and feel particularly proud of yourself, you find yourself facing the same amount of stairs down... and then immediately back up again. This demoralises just everyone.

2) You really don't need to carry that much with you, as teahouses all along the way provide food and basic bed. Just remember that you start at some 1070m and there it's warm (and gets even warmer on the steps), and you reach 4130m and there it's cold. 

From summer to winter in two days...

Lots of people that we met on the trail (and I mean trekkers, not climbers) hired porters to carry their variably huge packs.

I understand that if you don't have a leg or are over 70 (we met both cases on the way), but otherwise... again, you don't need so many things. Our backpacks were less than 10kg, including the sleeping bag. And I'm not sure how I feel about this type of income-generation for the local people.

3) Duration. I realise that this is very subjective, but Lonely Planet's Trekking in Nepal suggestion of 6 days just to reach ABC (!?) seems vastly excessive. Even the guy with the prosthetic leg made it up AND down in 6 days, and if you are reasonably fit you can do that as well - 5 days if you're fast and short of time. On the other hand, if you do have the time and want to, with a guesthouse on the trail every 1-2 hours you can stretch the trek out to anything up to two weeks.

Teahouses wherever you look

What I liked was not having a fixed schedule - every day you can walk as far as you feel like and decide on the go. I'm just not sure how well it works with accommodation capacity when the full number of high-season tourists crowd in.

4) Be strategic with the allocation of your time. At the beginning you pass through green forests which are pretty but not vastly exciting (so if you've been walking for two days up and down the stairs among trees without seeing much, and you're starting to wonder why at all you came, it's normal). The scenery and vegetation changes after Deurali, and the very spectacular things happen from Machhapuchhre base camp onwards. If you can, walk faster and longer hours the first two days, and take your time between MBC and ABC. It's really worth it. We added an extra day between ABC and MBC, and I'm very happy that we did.

Day 1: We started from Nayapul together with a couple of friends who were doing a shorter trek towards Poon Hill.

After a few hours our path split...

... and we continued alone up to Jhinudanda (1780m), where we spent the night.

Day 2: A vast quantity of steps through Chomrong and Sinuwa up to Bamboo (2310m)...

Sinuwa in sight

The Annapurna sanctuary plateau, where the base camp is located, was held as sacred by the Gurung people, and today there are still boards on the trail asking you not to bring or eat meat in the area, lest the gods get angry. And true enough, from Chomrong upwards you won't find practically any meat in the menus of the teahouses.

Dear Honourable Trekkers...

Please don't spit in this holy temple area

I'm guessing that the signpost on spitting should be directed rather at the local people, whose habits in this sense are something I'll probably never get over.

Tea and cards, the usual evening on trail

Day 3: Starting still in the forest...

... we finally got further up in the valley and closer to the giants.

Dovan

Mt Machhapuchhre, or Fish Tail in popular translation

Machhapuchhre (6993m) is a sacred peak, associated with the god Shiva. It has never been (officially) summitted, and it's illegal to climb it. The only expedition to Machhapuchhare, in 1957, stopped some 50m below the peak as they had promised. There ARE some unexplored places on the planet!

After Deurali (3200m) the landscape and vegetation gradually changed, the valley became narrower and steps almost disappeared (thankfully).

Deurali

From Deurali to MBC

Originally we hadn't planned to go so far in the day, but we ended up hiking up to Machhapuchhre base camp (3700m). It started to be quite fresh, and the scenery got more and more stunning - when we had the chance to see anything.

In the evening the sky cleared a little, and we could get some idea of what we were surrounded with...

Gangapurna on the right

Sunset over Machhapuchhre

Day 4: Instead of waking up at painful 4:30am to rush up to ABC as most people do, we leisurely got up (leisurely = 6am) to watch the sunrise from MBC...

Annapurna I

... had breakfast, and only then went up to ABC, just as the sun was moving above the peaks.

Sunrise over the Machhapuchhre peak

The normally hour-long hike from MBC to ABC took us over two hours. We were just unable to walk for more than a few minutes without stopping to take photos or just speechlessly admire the place. One of the most spectacular hikes I've done. I just didn't want it to finish, ever.

Annapurna South

Hiunchuli, Annapurna South and Annapurna I

Trying the porter's job

At happy snail-pace we eventually reached ABC...

... and though clouds were already starting to draw over the peaks, we went to explore a bit behind the camp, relax and get sunburnt.

With hundreds of prayer flags fluttering in the wind, the peaks rising all around, and commemorative desks for climbers who, like one inscription says, "became part of Mt Annapurna", there seemed no place more appropriately called a sanctuary.

"Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve,
they are the cathedrals where I practise my religion." (Boukreev)

As most days, by mid-afternoon everything was completely covered in clouds, at which point we took the usual refuge with cards and multiple thermos of tea. 

But at night (as I realised during my bathroom trip), clouds cleared up in the expectation of a glorious next day. Impressive.

Day 5: The average trekker comes to ABC to see the sunrise. Hardly surprising. In the huge amphitheatre of the mountains it was an awe-inspiring show.

Annapurna south

Annapurna south on the left and Annapurna I on the right

But for some mysterious reason - and that brings me to point 5) of the above tips - almost everyone leaves ABC before the sun gets halfway through on the peaks! By 7:30am the place is almost deserted, something which is just beyond my understanding (isn't THIS the reason why you walked for three or four days?) - but it means that you can wander around open-mouthed practically alone for a few hours, which we certainly did.

Meeting Czechs everywhere

I really, really didn't want to leave.

Eventually we did leave of course, and headed down, back to Bamboo.

Day 6: Loooong day. Up-and-down, and again up-and-down...

... we made our way to Gandruk (1940m), an unexpectedly pretty town with beautiful traditional stone-and-mud houses scattered across the hill...

Gandruk

Day 7: ... which treated us to quite a view on the last morning.

From there it was less than two hours down to the dusty road (more steps).

Luckily managing to catch a bus on the way, in three more hours were were in the lavish world of Pokhara with its apple pies and lake. According to the GPS, in the 7 days we had walked up a total of 7000m of elevation over 82km.

Way back to Pokhara

With a spare day left before returning to Kathmandu, our theoretical plans of climbing up somewhere for a view quickly dissolved into a lazy book-day by the lakeside...

... finished off by a dinner with kindred-spirited people we encountered over the week on the trail.

Couldn't have been a better holiday, really.


PD. A cool alternative to this post is the video from the trip :-)