Annapurna Circuit 20 Amazing days

In twenty days we trekked the Annapurna Circuit. Hiking over 210 kilometers starting at 800 meters in elevation from Besisahar climbing to the Thorung Pass at 5,416 meters. We saw a number of the world’s highest peaks including Annapurna I, Manaslu, and Fishtail Mountain while climbing though the world’s deepest gorge. Staying at tea houses or guest houses along the way, we went though sacred Buddhist and Hindu sites and saw some of the oldest monasteries in Nepal. This trek by far is one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.

Day One: Pokhara to Ngadi

Pokhara had been raining for a few days leading up to our departure. It was cold foggy rain which was sure to ruin our spirits if it kept up. We took an early morning bus to the police check point and had our TIMS Card and made sure we had paid our entry fees.

We had a small lunch and then took another smaller bus to get to the end of the road and the beginning of the trail. The inside was crammed packed and I couldn’t handle it. I went up to the roof to escape from the circus inside. On the roof I lost count at 20. So there were at least 20 of us on the roof of a bus with bald tires, going up roads that didn’t look like roads but wide trails, while it is raining and very slippery. I thought I was going to fall off for sure.

The first day our walk wasn’t too long, only about an hour or so. We were walking and a women approached our porter / guide Jaya speaking in Nepali and speaking a lot. Before we knew it Jaya said, okay here we are. The place where we were supposed to be spending the night 1) felt like it came too soon, we’d only been walking for an hour or so 2) looked like a disaster 3) made me wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into.

We walked to the next place to check it out and see if it was on par with this one. They were about the same. Ngadi just seemed to be less than what it appears on the map.

I played football / soccer with the kids while Cori tried to read. We taught the kids how to play the card game ‘Asshole’ but called it ‘Loser’ instead. I think the women who was talking to Jaya was telling him one of the boy’s stories. She had adopted a neighbor’s boy. The boy was incredibly smart and well behaved. His English was better than her own children’s. His father was working construction in Malaysia on a highrise building and had fallen off and his mother was now unable to support him.

For pictures from day one please click HERE

Day Two: Ngadi to Ghermu

The next morning we ordered Tibetan Bread, which was incredible. Unfortunately it is usually pretty oily which doesn’t do well if you have to hike right afterwards. The second day we walked along paths that went straight through rice farms. They were the kinds that are cut into the mountain allowing for greater flat space to farm on. It was really neat to see. Google image searches have nothing on seeing the real thing.

This was the first time on the hike that we were asked for pens by kids along the way. To whomever it was to gave the first kid the first pen on the Annapurna Circuit, you’ve created a culture of children who ask every single person passing through whether Westerner or Nepali for pens. Whether it be day 2 or day 20 children will ask for pens.

Dal Baht, I’m struggling writing about Dal Baht from so far away. “Dal Baht, big power for 24 hour.” “I like Dal Baht and I can not lie, you other brothers can’t deny.” Dal Baht is the traditional Nepali food. It consists of lentil soup, a “vegetable” sometimes this is just pickled matter, potatoes, rice- LOTS of rice, relish of some kind, and a crispy thin wafer. By the end of the trip I didn’t want to see another plate of Dal Bhat, but for the first couple of days it was a real treat.

For pictures from day two please click HERE

Day Three: Ghermu to Tal

Ghermu to Tal was supposed to be a really easy day. According to the map we were supposed to be there by lunch time without too much difficulty. It was a scorching hot day that didn’t start too early.

The scenery was great. We kept crossing back and forth over the river and saw about 20 waterfalls on the hike. We saw women carrying chickens on their backs to be sold at the markets. The first half was a great trip.

The second half, I think strictly because we were deceived by the map, was much harder. The sun was pounding down on us. the map showed that it should take an hour. After an hour Jaya said that we had about an hour to go. Tal was a very welcome sight to see.

It is a beautiful little town located on the river in a valley looking up at mountains whose peaks are 4,000 meters above it. We had some home brew that night and a long sleep.

For pictures from day three please click HERE

Day Four: Tal to Danakyu

We got in the routine of having a very plain, but good for the stomach breakfast; two hard boiled eggs and two chapattis. The walk from Tal to Danakyu was when we really started to realize where we were. The first few days we could have been in any mountainous region in Asia. But on this day we got our first glimpse of a 7,000 meter snow capped mountain smiling above the others.

We were on a teeter totter between Hindu and Buddhist religion and between Nepali and Tibetan cultures; it was starting to tip in the Tibetan Buddhist direction. The people’s facial characteristics were changing along with stature and skin color. It was amazing to see how entire ways of life could change with the change in mountain regions.

For pictures from day four please click HERE

Day Five: Danakyu to Chame

Walking out of Danakyu was the first time I’ve spun a Tibetan Prayer Wheel; I love them (and bought one for our living room). Buddhism comes in all shapes, colors, and forms, but it seems so much closer to home in the Himalayas a few hours walk from Tibet to the north and a few hundred kilometers from Lord Buddha’s birthplace in the south.

The scenery kept getting more and more incredible every day. The walking and pain from the previous days kept getting easier. Seeing beautiful mountains, surrounding myself in an amazing and foreign culture, and walking 10-20kms a day was becoming routine. This was a routine which I was very happy to have.

For pictures from day five please click HERE

Day Six: Chame to Upper Pisang

When you’re at altitude the one thing people always mention is the lack of oxygen. People usually have a vague idea that everything becomes more and more difficult, but what they don’t realize is that there is an extreme temperature variation between day andnight.

During the day it would get as high as 25 degrees so we would be in shorts and a t-shirt but as soon as we got in the shade or it was night it would plummet well below freezing (for at least 8 of the nights). The trek is the same latitude as Florida but the weather much different.

We spent the night in Upper Pisang. There were only 6 guest houses and when we looked down at Lower Pisang we’re glad we did. We had 5 more hours of sun than they did, we had an amazing gupta to visit and heard the monks praying in the afternoon, and we were in a much better position for our hardest day yet in the morning. The town itself seemed to cling to the side of the mountains and is unlike any other place in the world I’d ever been. Cars hadn’t delivered a single supply, every rock was deliberately placed, and it was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.

That afternoon I played cards with Jaya and some extremely old and extremely drunk man. Good times.

For pictures from day six please click HERE

Day Seven: Upper Pisang to Braga

From this point until day 15 I will stop saying “this was the best day of the trek” because every day was much better than the previous.

We started the day at 3,300 meters and were climbing up the long way to Manang. We’d spoken with a few people who all said that the effort that we would need to expend would be worth it. We walked about an hour until we reached what looked like a wall, a wall going straight up where we couldn’t see the top or where we were going. Climbing up this wall was really difficult; I could see the lower trail much further below us and people moving quickly without much effort when Cori and I were struggling with each step.

After an extremely long hour and a half we’d finally reached the top. The pictures as cliché as it sounds don’t do it justice.

I can’t and won’t attempt to write about how incredible the view was. Everyone was right; the extra effort was absolutely worth it.

Today was a 20 kilometer day which was expected to take between 6-8 hours. We did it in six knowing that the next day was a rest day. Exhausted and ready to collapse I took my first (and not knowing it then) my last hot shower in days.

That night we learned how to play Shithead from a couple, Lisa and Ian from England. So now our two favorite card games are Asshole and Shithead…classy.

For pictures from day seven please click HERE

Day Eight: Rest Day

Rest day is actually acclimatization day. When a person gets above 3,000 meters it is advisable for them not to spend the night more than 300 meters higher than they were the night before. A well-known and damn near proven acclimatization technique is to climb more than 300 meters in a day and sleep back down where you did the night before. Example: In Braga since we were sleeping at 3,500 meters we decided to do a day hike up to 4,100 meters to have our bodies produce more red-blood cells and then climb back down to sleep again at 3,500 meters.

We took a walk with Jaya to a glacial lake and to overlook the valley. Stunning but it was getting difficult to do much without putting forth twice the effort. I remembered being out of breath brushing my teeth. I was getting nervous that I wasn’t going to make it because of the difficulties doing the simplest of tasks.

For pictures from day eight please click HERE

Day Nine: Braga to Khangsar

The town that we stayed at wasn’t on any map that we could find, including the official map, our topographical map, google, or any map online. The sign on the guest house didn’t say the town name either. It wasn’t really a town, rather just two guest houses next to one another between Manang and Tilicho Lake Base Camp.

The walk was fine; it wasn’t hard on the lungs or legs. We were starting to get above the tree line. Trees stop growing at a certain altitude. This is important to know because things start getting more expensive, it starts getting much colder, and when at that altitude, warmth smells like yak dung.

One of my favorite pictures of the entire trek was taken that day with Jaya and I playing cards (by Cori, who has a real eye for photos).

For pictures from day nine please click HERE

Day Ten: Khangsar to Tilicho Lake then to TL Base Camp

Day 10 was definitely the most difficult thus far. We were to go from around 3,600 meters to over 5,000 meters and back down in a single agonizing day. We woke up early, before anyone else because we had to get to Tilicho Base Camp before the other porters because there were only 50 beds between the two guest houses.

Jaya told me, “you go ahead, get a room, don’t run otherwise your head will hurt with the altitude.” I made the walk in just under 2:30 through some of the scariest terrain that I’ve even seen. Doing it alone freaked me out because if I fell in the landslide area I’d be a thousand meters down and nobody would know.

I ran into the owner of one of the guest houses along the way. He told me that he was sold out that night, but that the other one may be open. He was smoking a cigarette and yelling into the mountain to see if there were landslides ahead. Crazy man.

I arrived at the base camp and both guest houses were sold out. We had the option of sleeping on the floor in the restaurant with the porters and other guests who didn’t get a room, OR, we could sleep in a tent. I chose the tent after the man working said that the porters could be drinking and gambling into the night.

Cori and Jaya arrived about 30-45 minutes behind me. We had a quick lunch, put our things into the tent for safe keeping and started up the mountain. The walk itself was stunning. Mountains assaulting our senses and humbling us with their gigantic stature.

Walking slow decreases the chance of brain swelling and altitude sickness. Our hearts were pounding and it was the only sound we could hear. One foot in front of the other bistaarai, bistaarai, slowly slowly in Nepali.

We were the very last group to go up. People around noon were already starting to come down as they’d gone up to the lake for sunrise after spending the night at the base camp. Everyone we talked to said, “you’ve still got about another 1-2 hours.” This was being said to us from the time we left base camp until we really were 1-2 hours away.

There was a group of younger Israelis in front of us. One of the girls was having a really rough go at it. She was on the side of the trail breathing heavily asking us for water. Water is another key to not getting altitude sickness. I was drinking at least four liters of water a day even if I wasn’t thirsty, just to stave off headaches and other warning signs of altitude sickness. This woman didn’t bring water with her, what the hell was she thinking?

There’s one picture of Cori with Jaya that sums up the hike pretty well. Absolutely beautiful landscape in the background, Cori’s face bordering misery, and Jaya just having another day at the office. Here’s a link to the picture.

We finally arrived. My mind was playing tricks on me. I thought that I was having a panic attack because my heart was beating so fast and I couldn’t regulate it even when sitting still. My mind kept telling me that we were going to get stranded. Snow was on it’s way, I couldn’t breathe, the lake was beautiful, but I needed some sweet, sweet oxygen and was ready to go back down. At this point the girl who was in bad shape came up and she was in such pain she was crying like crazy, dehydrated, and we thought that she could die given the shape she was in.

We hopped, we ran, we did everything we could to preserve our knees but get down before the storm came. We got dinner and stewed in the dining hall with the musky smell of burning dung.

On our way back to the tent we saw the sick girl being carried down. She had some shots to stop her brain from swelling too bad.

Someone had a thermometer and it said -20 degrees. We camped in -20 with a broken zipper. Snow had gotten into our tent and our breath had made ice on the inside of the tent. Our muscles felt atrophied the next morning because of our shivering.

For pictures from day ten please click HERE

Day Eleven: Tilicho Lake Base Camp to Khangsar

It took about an hour to thaw out. My fingers felt so much pain and my toes didn’t exist that morning. We ate quickly and got on the road. The hike on the way back seemed much more difficult than the way there. I think it was just because the day before was such hell.

Jaya went ahead and got us the same room we’d slept the night before. I immediately took a nap and sat in my sleeping bag for most of the day. We drank at least six liters of hot tea while waiting for bed time.

We saw the sick girl that night. She showed up with a really sour attitude when we asked her genuinely how she was and if she’d continue. She said, I’m this close, it would be stupid for me not to go. The pass is 400 meters higher than the lake. I thought it would be stupid for her to continue. That was the last we ever saw or heard from her.

For pictures from day eleven please click HERE

Day Twelve: Khangsar to Yak Karka

We met a few American women that were staying at Celesty Inn before our trip and said that when a Nepali person says that the trail is flat; not to trust them. Today was the reason why.

We left the no-named town for Yak Karka, aptly named because of the high yak population. The map showed that it was flat, Jaya said that it was flat, and we expected it to be flat. The Americans’ voices rang in my head. After passing though what looked like a ghost town we were staring down a cliff.

We had to climb down 400 meters which meant that shortly after that we’d have to climb up 400 meters. We were offered hash along the way by some young guys selling supplies on the side of the trail. We turned them down but talked to them for a few minutes about America, bowling, and music. I have no idea how they know what bowling is but, sure enough, they did.

Yak Karka was a small place with about 10 guest houses which were all serving yak burgers. We declined the opportunity to add yak to a list of new meats we’ve tried on this trip. Meat is also supposed to be bad and contribute to altitude sickness.

We ate pasta and went to bed early and were kept up half the night by a noisy group below us. Half the night meaning until about 10pm.

For pictures from day twelve please click HERE

Day Thirteen: Yak Karka to Thorung Phedi

The hike from Yak Karka to Thorung Phedi was fairly simple. Hordes of people littered the trails on the way up. I was a little fed up with being around so many people so I wanted to walk ahead at a much faster pace. Walking fast at this altitude was no problem for me. I think that the walk to Tilicho Lake had further helped my acclimatization. I felt like I was ready for anything the trail could throw at me.

We arrived early, around 10:30 in the morning. We debated going up to the high camp and gaining another 400 meters in altitude. After talking with the man who owned the guest house and Jaya, we opted to stay at the low camp. If we were to feel the signs of altitude sickness we’d have to go back down anyways. We set the alarm to wake up at 3AM and be on our way by 3:30AM.

We met a really nice guy named Julian whose guide was getting sick. Later that night he would keep the other guides awake with diarrhea and vomiting from altitude sickness. We talked and invited him to join us for what was supposed to be the toughest day of the trek.

We went to bed shortly after dark with anticipation making it difficult to sleep.

For pictures from day thirteen please click HERE

Day Fourteen: PASS DAY Thorung Phedi to Muktinath

3AM came quick. I was ready to conquer the pass. I woke with no signs of headache, body ache, nor fatigue. Cori told me that while training for triathlons and her marathon that the coaches would always say the same thing, “nothing new on race day.” We had the same breakfast, two hard boiled eggs and two chapattis.

Julian, Jaya, Cori, and I started walking with our headlamps on slowly up the hill. We were told that the first couple of kilometers were the most difficult and once we reached high camp it would be simple from there. We kept a pace faster than most up the first part so that we wouldn’t bottle neck and we’d be in the front so our view would be unobstructed.

We passed high camp with little difficulty. The sun was coming out and it was absolutely gorgeous. The stars faded away with the coming of dawn and I felt great. Cori was having a difficult time breathing and her heart was pounding. I was worried for her but knew that the pass was only a few kilometers from where we were. Turning around wasn’t an option.

We started to get passed by people riding up on mules. They were having the mule guide stop so that they could take pictures. It was almost comical to see these people riding mules to the top of the mountain while we were huffing and puffing and having difficulties walking. We’d reached the pass and seen the famous sign that everyone gets their picture taken with.

There was much fanfare and I felt really proud of me and Cori. We had one of the best cups of tea that I can remember at the top. We took about 50 pictures, ate a Snickers bar and a few Hobnobs and began what I was dreading most, the 1,700 meter descent.

The landscape changed to a very barren, dry, desolate scene that reminded me of some of the hikes in Arizona. The walk down seemed to take forever. We were playing games to keep our minds occupied so that boredom wouldn’t make us trip up and fall. Cori and I were trying to remember every movie we’d ever seen with one another. Julian and I were naming 80’s movies in alphabetical order. After we finished we went through capitals of countries in alphabetical order.

We reached Muktinath in the early afternoon, had the best dal baht I’d ever had, invested very wisely in a hot shower, and took a much deserved nap. That night we went out with a couple we’d met in Yak Kharka who we ran into again at our guest house.

We had a few $5 beers, watched while everyone was smoking hashish in and around the Bob Marley Bar, and I bought Cori an amazing wool big scarf /small blanket. Sleep came easy and hit me hard. It was the first night in a while where we didn’t set the alarm.

For pictures from day fourteen please click HERE

Day Fifteen: Muktinath to Kagbeni

We’d heard about Kagbeni and the Dragon Hotel before we left. It was rumored to have an owner who ran a guest house in Japan and knew what Westerners wanted; which included bathtubs in the rooms, hot apple pie, and a common area to watch television. We were dying to get there but Jaya was eager to first show us one of the holiest sites in Nepal.

It was both a Hindu temple and a Buddhist Gupta as well. Once we crossed the pass there was a road all the way from Muktinath into civilization. It was at times the worst road that I’ve ever seen, albeit it was a road and many Hindu people from all over India and Nepal make a pilgrimage to this temple. One thing of interest was 108 fountains that were supposed to be for long life. We all splashed some water on our heads and went on. We saw an eternal flame that came from an underground stream making it look a little like the water was on fire. Jaya was excited to show us the Hindu temple and told Cori to join him. When Cori took off her shoes and tried to walk in the woman at the door shoved Cori and told her it was for Hindus only. The bathtubs in Kagbeni sounded better and better.

The walk was along the road for the most part and very bland. We were in a high desert that would be amazing had we not just hiked 14 days through some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet.

The rumors were true. We took baths, had apple pie, and watched cable TV!

For pictures from day fifteen please click HERE

Day Sixteen: Kagbeni to Tatopani

We woke up and walked to Jomsom, walking again on the road for the most part. It felt like a different hike than we had started. We opted to take the bus from Jomsom to Tatopani meaning hot water because of it’s hot springs. For me the bus ride was uneventful. For Cori it was a terrifying experience of being trapped in a death-machine with bald tires while being breathed on by a red-headed Israeli kid.

We decided that going to the hot springs wasn’t for us and instead talked with a lovely German couple for a few hours about different places to visit and not to visit. This conversation was the second in as many days where we’d been warned about the perils of Vietnamese scam artists.

For pictures from day sixteen please click HERE

Day Seventeen: Tatopani to Ghara

The walk from Tatopani to Ghara was covered by lush vegetation and kept us relatively cool in the lower altitude. There was apparently a race going on that was 150 miles over 6 days. We hadn’t seen anyone yet but the trail was covered in bright pink rubber bows marking the trail.

The view from where we stayed was pretty incredible. We didn’t want to look at it from the roof because there was an extremely sick woman in the fetal position up there. The highlight of this day was meeting the craziest old woman we’d ever met. She was in her mid 60’s, had no guide, ordered roksi first thing which is like Nepali everclear, served warm, and told us all about how she tried to go to Poon Hill the week before but it was too cloudy so she was trying again. Also mentioned that she’d met a really nice Icelandic woman from the race and hoped to see her again the next day. We later found out there were no Icelandic people in the race…too much roksi?

For pictures from day seventeen please click HERE

Day Eighteen: Ghara to Ghorepani

The walk to Ghorepani was easy. We were there in a few hours and had a whole lot of time to kill. I read The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev; it was a good read but kind of eerie because we could see the mountain he died climbing on the horizon. Ghorepani was a larger place with some cool things to look at.

It was very busy because it was the jumping off place to go to Poon Hill. Poon Hill is comparatively an easy hike to a peak of around 3,300 meters to see the sunrise with 2 of the world’s tallest mountains and an incredible panorama of the Himalayas.

For pictures from day eighteen please click HERE

Day Nineteen: Poon Hill and the long way down

We walked up Poon Hill before the sun came up and ran into our friend Julian that we crossed Thorong Pass with. The view was spectacular but nothing special compared to what we’d already seen. My stomach was a little upset and I keep thinking about the woman on the roof who was hunched over the day before.

We got some pictures and headed back to the guest house for breakfast. We had to descend around 2,000 meters down steep steps to get where we were sleeping that night. Again the tediousness of going downhill was getting to me.

My stomach was gurgling and I knew I’d had it.

We arrived in the afternoon and until the next morning I couldn’t be more than a few meters from the toilet.

For pictures from day nineteen please click HERE

Day Twenty: Back to Pokhara

After having a really crappy night, we walked as fast as I could, but my strength had been zapped by whatever parasitic bastard that was living inside of me. We finally arrived back in Pokhara at the Celesty Inn. It was the most anti-climactic finish to one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done in my life, the goodbye with Jaya was nothing more than a wave as I ran upstairs to spend the next few days by the toilet.

For pictures from day twenty please click HERE

If you have any questions please feel free to email me. I’ll also be happy to give you Jaya’s information as I would recommend him and trust him with my life.