While the Everest range has higher mountains, the Annapurnas is far more accessible. Everest base camp hike is difficult due to the altitude. So I chose to hike in Annapurnas range. The range rises a short distance north of Pokhara. The bus ride from Kathmandu to Pokhara was about 6 hours. Within a few days walk, I was surrounded by nearby high peaks. The Annapurna Sanctuary is a high glacial basin lying forty kilometers directly north of Pokhara. This oval-shaped plateau sits at an altitude of over 4000 meters, and is surrounded by a ring of mountains, the Annapurna range, most of which are over 7000 meters.
My 68-yr-old hiking pal from Canada has hiked in Nepal three times. We hiked without guides or porters. On the first day, we woke up early to catch a 6 am bus to nayapal as advised by the taxi driver who was a hiking guide. That direction of the hike was pretty dust for the first three hours since the minivans travel on it as well. It turns into a real trail after sysuli bazaar. We took the advice of a local person which led to a big detour and more dust.
Anyway, we reached new bridge and decided to stay overnight, instead of marching all the way to jhinu hot spring.
The 2nd day was more challenging than planned due to steep stairs up to chhomring. I rent a dawn cost as suggested by a lady the night before to cope with the cool near the base camp. The steep stairs down from sinuwa to bamboo were tiring. The 2nd day was a long day. I usually do not give money to beggars, but three kids standing and singing a cheering song on top of a hill moved me and I tipped them. Very cleaver kids!The 3rd day from bamboo to deurali got us 900 meters elevation gain. Since it has ups and downs so it wasn't too bad. We reached the target around noon, then showered, ate lunch, did laundry, and enjoyed the sun before it disappeared.
The 4th day was the toughest day because we had to assent then decent 900 meters. We started 5:15 am in the dark and then reached MBC at 3700 meters at 8:15 for breakfast. I felt minor headache half way to abc and had very sever headache and barely made up to ABC at 4130 meter high. I was advised to get down ASAP to relief from the high altitude sickness. I rested about half an hour then got down to MBC. I still felt sick at MBC which has better views then ABC, so we took a light lunch and then continue descending. Right before we were leaving MBC, a hiking guide stopped us and asked us to pursued his Korean client to decent immediately since he already vomited and will get worse if staying in MBC as he insisted. Fortunately, he listened to our warming and agreed to go down. One nice hiker gave us Aspirin to reduce the pain temperately so we can walk down. I slept one night and my sickness was totally gone. We woke up and had breakfast before we started on the 5th day. The descending was much faster than expected so we slept at Chhomrong over night after we returned the rental dawn coat. After so many days of hiking with the same kinds of vegetables and no fresh fruit, I was really craving for city food.
The 6th day had the best views along the trail, but it came with a steep climb to pittam deurali. Deurali means high pass over a mountain range. What was surprising was the concurrent super-marathon from Pokhara to Chhomring out and back. I was motivate by the trail runners and tried to hike faster than usual. My legs were very soar that night.
The 7th and last day was down hill 800 meters straight which was hard on my knees. Thanks to my hiking sticks which helped tremendously. We took two buses then walked 20 minutes back to Pokhara for lunch. I finally got to eat big pieces of chicken after 7 days. Most organized hikes finish the same trails in 10 days, but we did it in 6.5 days because we did not like to stay overnight at he higher and colder sites and we were tired of the same good offered by the guest houses in the
Annapurna Sanctuary.
