The itinerary:
Day 1 - Beshisahar (760m) to Bahundanda (1398m)
Day 2 - Bahundanda to Chamje (1300 m)
Day 3 - Chamje to Baragchhap (2000m)
Day 4 - Baragchhap to Chame (2700 m)
Day 5 - Chame to Pisang (3100m)
Day 6 - Pisang to Manang (3400m)
Day 7 - Acclimitization Day in Manang
Day 8 - Acclimitization Day in Manang
Day 9 - Manang to Yak Kharka (4000m)
Day 10 - Yak Kharka to Thorong Pedi (4540m)
Day 11 - Acclimitization Day in Thorong Pedi
Day 12 - Thorong Pedi to Muktinath (3800m) via La Thorong Pass (5416m)
Day 13 - Muktinath to Jomsom (2700m)
Day 14 - Jomsom to Ghasa (2000m) - partly by jeep!
Day 15 - Ghasa to Tatopani (1200m)
Day 16 - Tatopani to Ghorapani (2900m)
Day 17 - Ghorapani to Nayapul (1060m), then bus to Pokhara!
Day 1
The first day of trekking started out fairly easy as all it was was walking along a dirt road until we reached the town of Bhulbhule where the trail left the road and passed along a nice dirt trail. The trail continued along the valley floor for most of the day and wasn't too difficult until we came to the last hour or so. From here the trail steepened and just about all of the elevation gain for the day was packed into the end. At least upon reaching out destination of Bahundanda we were awarded with some pretty nice views, or at least what would have been some spectacular views if the sky wasn't so hazy. All in all it was a pretty easy day except for getting slightly lost a couple of times in areas of road construction (a couple of mins of backtracking quickly found our desired route each time though). The amazing part of the day though was to continuously see small Nepalese porters pass us carrying HUGE loads (up to 50kg) only held up by a small strap over their foreheads! Talk about crazy but that's normal life here as the only way to transport anything is to carry it since there are no roads on this side of the pass. Throughout the course of the journey we would see some crazy things being carried by a porter including: a desk, about 50kgs worth of live chickens, tons of wood (up to 4 4m long 10 x 30 cm planks, each weighing about 15-20 kgs), and 3 or 4 personal bags just to mention a few. After reaching Bahundanda the three of us met a couple of other solo trekkers: Quinn a fellow Canadian (born in Calgary even) and Elia from Israel. Talking to Quinn we quickly learned of a unique problem that had befallen him earlier that day. After walking for about an hour or so the soles to his boots fell off. That's right just fell off of his boots leaving them pretty much completely useless. So I guess we shouldn't be putting boots in storage as that's where they were sitting for the past 3 years or so according to him and before that they were solid. Anyways more on that later.
While the 5 of us were sitting down enjoying our well deserved evening meal the ground and all the buildings began to shake. At first we were all worried about it and wondering if it would get worse when the boy who ran the restaurant came to us and said "don't worry it happens all the time and will come back soon". We all started asking questions, mainly what was it, but he said he'd tell us in a minute and proceeded to disappear for a bit. Sure enough a couple of minutes later the ground and buildings were shaking again. After the second shock we were able to talk to the boy some more and found out that the earthquakes happen fairly regularly here (although we never found out exactly how regularly), there are always 2 shocks, and also that some people die. Wait a minute, what? He then proceeded to tell us that only in the Everest region do the earthquakes occasionally make buildings collapse and people die. Phew, not where we are. After that we were able to relax some more and enjoy the rest of the evening.
Day 2
We got off to an early start today and skipped breakfast while Elia, Ryan, Jacque and myself descended back down the 400m we had climbed yesterday to the river for a quick dip in some hot springs. We started by taking a quick dip in the cold river before quickly scrambling back into the empty hot spring pool. After a couple of minutes of soaking in it one of the locals came down and said "hot one up there" and proceeded to insist that we accompany him to the hotter of the pools. There the locals all encouraged us to try the hottest pool and it was quickly discovered that the hottest pool was scorching. The pool was at least 50 degrees and probably closer to 60. So we all settled to relax in the slightly more temperate pool next to it. The locals then proceeded to entertain themselves by watching us drink some local homemade liquor. Man was that stuff strong. After the dip in the hot springs we climbed our way back up to Bahundanda and enjoyed a great breakfast before heading out for that days trekking.
The trekking for that day was similar to the previous days trekking as we were mostly down in a valley trekking through forests, rice paddies and small villages. At the end of the day of trekking we were so dead that ecstatic to finally reach Chamje. We were even blessed with a great lodge as it was located directly across a narrow valley from a very impressive waterfall. It was incredible to be able to finally relax at the lodge and just sit there watching the waterfall.
Day 3
The trail today started out pretty similar to the previous couple of days: walking along a narrow valley through some forests and rice paddies. However, after only a couple of hours we reached what looked like the end of the valley and had a steep climb out of it. Thankful to be done the climb we gazed out at a much broader valley that was breathtaking. We paused for a few minutes at the top of the climb and just looked back along the valley where we spotted a huge Himalayan Griffin, a bird with a wingspan of about 2m. We just stood there for several minutes gazing as this magnificent bird soared throughout the valley searching for warm thermals to carry him upwards on. Amazing.
Trekking through the new valley we came to the town of Tal and again met Quinn and a couple of other Canadians: Amy from Ottawa and Dan from Montreal. That afternoon we all headed out to finish the day together and, although none of us would have guessed it at the time, was the inaugural walk for what would become Team Sole and the formation of some great friendships. As we were just leaving Tal we ran into Elia again as he had pressed on on his own. Only this time he was walking back towards Tal with his head covered in blood. Apparently he had been hit on the head by a falling rock and had to go back to Tal for some medical attention. So after ensuring that he was in good hands we continued on our way to Bagarchhap. As we fell asleep in Bagarchhap that night we lay listening to the rains hoping that it would stop before having to press on again the next day.
Day 4
Awakening and not hearing the sound of rain we all thought that the day ahead would be pretty good as none of us wanted to walk in the rain; however, we were even more blessed than with just no rain. The rain throughout the night had cleared up the skies and as a result we awoke to our first clear blue skies and amazing views of the surrounding peaks. It took us a long time that day to finally leave Bagarchhap as we kept just stopping to stare at the mountains around us. Absolutely amazing.
The trek that day was fairly short as we were just heading to Chame, but we took our time as none of us wanted to stop staring at the surrounding mountains. As it was all of our first views of the magic of the Himalayas I think we were all hooked and with nothing but more impressive views to come. Arriving in Chame we reached the first point where the evenings started to cool off noticeably. As a result the owner of our guesthouse provided us with a "heater" under our table: a bucket of wonderfully hot coals. As a result we sat there eating and playing cards in the nice heat, something that would become fairly common over the trip. While we were busy relaxing and playing cards, Quinn had managed to track down a local man who wandered between villages repairing shoes. So Quinn quickly arranged for him to stitch the soles of his boots back on using some bright orange thread so that they would be usable when we got to the pass. After this highly entertaining incident, watching the locals reaction when Quinn showed them his boots was priceless, we nicknamed Quinn sole man and shortly afterwards our group started calling ourselves Team Sole. We also tried singing the song Soul Man but without the internet none of us knew any lyrics other than "I'm a soul man" so we just took to singing the chorus over and over.
Day 5
Today was another fairly light day of trekking and after 4 previous days we had really gotten into the swing of things. No longer did we all feel out of shape and dead tired at the end of the day but we felt good. Like today after we had completed the required trek to Pisang we found a hotel, dropped off our bags, rested for a little bit then headed uphill to visit the town of Upper Pisang. While walking up the path we were all enjoying ourselves and chatting away when somebody stopped and said "Umm has anybody looked behind us?". We all stopped right away and turned around and that was about when all of our jaws dropped at the view. Standing there on the path we were granted our first view of the Annapurna range, we could see Annapurna II standing at 7937 meters, and it was fabulous. We all stood there for several minutes just gaping at the immense mountain in front of us before we slowly turned back around and continued our climb up to Upper Pisang. Upon arriving in Upper Pisang we visited a small Goumpa, Buddhist monastery, which had been built and funded by the locals over the past 6 years. That night while relaxing in Pisang we came to the decision of taking the high route to Manang, the next day's destination. Thus leaving us with a hard day ahead of us.
Day 6
We awoke early to get a good start on thıs, our difficult day along the upper route to Manang. Headıng out of Pısang we couldn't stop taking breaks and looking back at the impressive Annapurna range. Eventually we made it to the base of the steep and long clımb up that made this day tough. After climbing about 700 meters we finally made it to the top and were awarded with what may have been the best views of the trıp. Almost the entire backside of the Annapurna range was visible to us at this point. İt was definitely worth the long haul up and words just can't describe how beautıful and amazing the huge Hımalayas are. This has to be probably one of the best places to view ıt from. After spending about an hour at the top looking at the mountaıns across the valley (and restıng after the climb) we continued the long day towards Manang. The trip down to Manang was fairly easy after the hard climb and there were great mountain views available for the rest of the day.
Just before reaching our final destination of Manang we stopped ın a bakery at Bhraka. We were told that ıt's the original bakery on the circuit and it came highly recommended from another trekker so we had to give it a go. İf we hadn't seen the amazing mountain peaks earlier then this would have easily been the highlight of the day. The chocolate cake here was to die for (and after spendıng 6 days on the trail that made it even better). After enjoying our cake at the bakery we finished our day by finally making it to Manang. Manang was the first town that was above 3500 meters and as a result people start to feel the effect of altitude here. To help acclimatize most people spend an extra day here and we were all looking forward to havıng a rest day the following day.
Day 7
Our rest day. We spent the morning doing some laundry and just relaxing around the hotel and wandering around the main street of Manang. İn the afternoon we headed back to Bhraka to visit the bakery again where this time we sampled a tuna and cheese wrap as well as some apple pie. Both were extremely delıcıoıus again and defiantly worth returning for. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and playing cards after a short walk up to the Goumpa ın Bhraka.
Day 8
From Manang İ left the group for a couple of days as İ wanted to do the side trip up to Tilicho Lake while no body else dıd. So day 8 started off with me leavıng Manang fairly early as I thought that the trip to Tilicho Base Camp Hotel would be quite long. It turned out to be a relatively easy day as I arrived at the hotel just after noon and had the rest of the day to relax. The only difficult part was for the last hour before the hotel the path crossed landslıde slope after landslıde slope. This meant that I was crossing loose scree on a steep slope and at some points was quite worried about the rocks giving way beneath my feet and falling all the way to the bottom of the valley. Luckily I managed to cross all of the avalanche slopes safely and made it to the hotel where I was able to spend the afternoon reading and staring at the peaks surrounding me. Another impressive sight.
Day 9
Today I awoke even earlier to make the trip up to Tilicho Lake, the highest lake in the world. After climbing for a couple of hours I passed the 5000 meter mark and made the short decent down to Tilicho Lake, whıch ıs sıtuated at 4919 meters. The site of the lake was stunning as on one side of the lake there was an ıce wall that rose up to meet the clıff wall of Tilicho Peak (and a few other peaks) while on the other sides of the lake there were smaller peaks immediatly surrounding it but huge peaks in the background. The only slightly disappointing thing was that the lake was completely frozen and covered ın snow but I think this is normal for most of the year.
After spending a couple of hours wandering around the lake and marvelling at its beauty I headed back down to the hotel for some lunch. Back at the hotel I spent a quıck hour eating and resting before grabbing my pack and continuing back down the valley towards the main trail. A short 3 hours after leavıng the Base Camp Hotel I made it to Tilicho Hotel (name might not be correct...) and had an early night as I had a long day the next day to catch up with the rest of the group.
Day 10
Leavıng Tilicho Hotel I took a short cut off the trail to Tilicho Lake that was supposed to meet up with the main trail. The short cut started off well as the trail was pretty easy to follow for the first 30 minutes but then I came to an abandoned village, which was pretty interesting to walk around. At this village the trail to continue wasn't very obvious and it took me a little while to figure out where I had to go, but I eventually sorted it out and was on my way again. The trekking throughout this day was pretty straight forward once I met up with the main path again and it was just a few hours of headıng steadiıly up to Thorong La, the last place we were sleeping before heading over the path. Reachıng Thorong La I met up with the others that I had left behind ın Manang and we spent the rest of the day just relaxıng as being at this altitude took a lot out of you. Thorong La was situated at 4450 meters so doing at this elevation seemed to take a lot of work, but at least none of us were suffering from altitude sickness so everything was going well. As we headed to bed that night it started to snow, something I hadn't been expecting on my trıp, but at least it wasn't too cold and it all seemed to melt by morning.
Day 11
We took another acclimitization day at Thorong La as the doctors ın Manang recommended spendıng 3 nıghts between Manang and the pass. As a result three of us decided to scramble up one of the surroundıng valley walls (well 4 of us started but 1 turned back early on). Dan being crazy decided to climb up to the pass and back to see what it was like. Scrambling up the valley wall was a lot of fun, and we figure we made it to about 5200 meters before heading back down to the hotel. Whıle up at the top Quınn was yelling and we discovered that the surrounding cliff faces provided a very nice echo. So we spent a good chunk of time just yelling at the cliffs (anybody on the path below us that heard us must've thought that we were crazy); however this proved much more difficult than we imagined as it took quite a while to catch our breath between each shout because of the altitude.
Back at the hotel we spent the rest of the day resting up and gettıng prepared for the next day as it was going to be long. We headed to bed quite early as the following day was going to begin at 4am (start walking by 5) to ensure that we would have plenty of time to cross the pass.
Day 12
Today started off super early, 4:15 am to be exact. We awoke in the pitch dark and the six of us all tried to pack at the same time in the tiny room, there was probably enough space for 2 or 3 of us to actually do it at a time. After trying to quickly pack we started out at 5am for the 1000 meter climb to the pass. The first bit of the climb was pretty steep but once we made it up the first 400 meters or so to High Base Camp Hotel we were rewarded with getting to see the sun rise over the mountains, and a nice cup of tea. After a short break here we continued to push on towards the pass, another 600 meters up. The rest of the climb up wasn't too steep for the most part however it was very hard going and took another 2-3 hours to complete the climb. Eventually we made it and hauled ourselves up the final few feet to sit on top of Thorong La Pass, 5416 meters!
The top of the pass was pretty amazing and we spent about an hour taking in our accomplishment and just looking around at the surrounding peaks that still towered above us. While up here we also took the mandatory group photo of the sign at the top and ate the chocolate bars that we had all been saving for this moment.
After enjoying our time at the top we started back down the other side of the pass into one of the largest valleys that I have ever seen. The trip back down the other side of the pass was really long and seemed to go on forever but the landscape was pretty interesting as we were walking through a huge valley that was completely barren. If anything the decent was even tougher than the climb up to the pass as we had to descend 1600 meters down to Muktinath and this became quite tiring as the trail was quite steep but to add to that we were all quite hungry and tired at this point.
Finally at about 5:30pm we reached our destination of Muktinath and were welcomed by a very unwelcoming sight: motorbikes. At this point the trek joined up with the much more developed Jomson Trek and this contained a road all the way along it so it was almost as if we had reentered civilization after 12 days of being away from it. The one benefit of it though was that our hotel had hot water, a luxury.
Day 13
Today was a real wakeup call after being in fairly isolated valleys for the previous 12 days of the trek. For the most part of the day we were walking along a really dusty road and had to keep watching out for passing jeeps. In addition to the jeeps the wind was absolutely howelling through the valley and we had to walk quite bent over into the wind to be able to stand in it at all. In addition to the wind and jeeps we were still walking through the extremely barren valley so the scenery didn't change very much to allow a distraction for us. The one highlight of the day though was the restaurant that we stopped in for lunch at Kagbeni, it had to have had some of the best food that we ate on the entire trip, delicious. The trekking in the afternoon was pretty similar to the morning but just outside of Jomson we came to a broken down jeep blocking the road. Being good citizens we helped the local Nepali people push the jeep to the side of the road so others could get by it and we were rewarded with a free jeep ride to our destination of Jomson.
Day 14
After the terrible trekking conditions of the previous day we decided to take a jeep for a part of todays journey. We started out by walking for an hour to a nice little town called Marpha which was quite nice and a great place to rest while waiting for the jeep. Once the jeep arrived the six of us crammed into it to make a total of 12 plus the driver and we headed off towards Ghasa. This jeep ride had to have been one of the bumpiest rides ever and if we weren't packed into the jeep so tightly I'm sure we would've all been flying around constantly.
Day 15
Today we were back on the trail and it was a pretty good day of trekking. We were able to avoid walking on the road for most of the day as a seperate path had been built on the other side of the narrow valley. In addition to being off the road, we had finally left the barren and windy valley behind so everyone was in pretty good spirits. To aide with the better conditions though we all knew that we were heading to Tatopani where there are some great hot springs. The hot springs in Tatopani are much more developed than the first set we went to (we actually had to pay to enter them) but they were still amazing and they felt so good after having being trekking for the past 2 weeks. The majority of the afternoon and evening in Tatopani were spent relaxing in either the hot spring or at the hotel.
Day 16
This was another brutal day, what we hoped was the last of the trek. The plan for the day was to climb 1600 meters from Tatopani to Ghorapani and it truly was difficult after having the previous few days be all downhill or a jeep ride. After a long tiring day we finally made it to Ghorapani which is located only 40 mins from Poon Hill, a beautiful sunrise spot that gives views of the entire Annapurna range. However when we went to bed that night we weren't feeling too optimistic about the views the next morning as the haze had returned. But we went to bed early with the plan to wake up and check the sky at 4 am.
Day 17
Sure enough at 4am the skies were quite hazy still as we could barely see any stars or the moon so we decided to just keep on sleeping and skipped walking up to Poon Hill. In the end this seemed like a good decision as we met other travellers who said they couldn't see anything other than haze (one guy went so far to say that it was amazing, he hadn't seen this much haze ever before in his life). Later that morning we finally awoke and prepared for our final day of trekking. The day was still pretty long though as we had to descend the 1600 meters that we had climbed the previous day. The trail down was just one long staircase and at the end of it everyone was quite sore and glad that is was over. We eventually reached Nayapul at 5:30 pm and quickly caught a bus that would take us to Pokhara and true civilization. Arriving in Pokhara we had a nice shower and went out for some delicious food and a beer before returning to our hotel completely exhausted.
The Annapurna Circuit was an absolutely amazing trek and I would definately recommend it to anyone as the sights that we got to see were unreal. The trek was made even better by the people that I spent it with: Ryan, Jacque, Quinn, Dan, and Amy. Definately an awesome trip.
Jacque sitting in the hot springs just outside of Bahundanda.
A typical view of the trail for the first few days of the trek.
A signpost just outside of Tal showing the distances and elevations of the main villages along the trek.
A porter carrying a desk up the mountain, just one example of the crazy things these porters carried.
A local lumbermill. All of the wood used in the buildings is cut locally and planed by hand to produce the necessary planks.
A shot of the group along the trail.
A small stone carin on the trail with a view of Annapurna II behind it.
Quinn gazing up at Annapurna II, this is the day when we took the upper trail from Pisang to Manang and couldn't stop staring at the peaks.
Team Sole posing on the trail from Pisang to Manang with the Annapurna range in the background.
A shot of the trail up to Tilicho Lake just after leaving Manang.
Standing in front of the frozen Tilicho Lake, the world's highest lake at 4919 meters.
Some prayer flags blowing in the wind at Tilicho Lake.
Quinn and Jacque on our excursion from Thorong Phedi. Here is when we were causing the echos in the valley.
On top of the pass! Standing in front of the sign congratulating us on making it to 5416 meters, the top of Thorong La pass.
A view down the valley after the pass. You can see how barren and wide the valley is, something that we hadn't experienced yet on the trek.
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