I've just spend 18 days trekking around the outside of the Annapurna Massif, a 330 km route starting up the Marsyangdi valley from Besi Sahar (760m). It took a couple of days walking uphill to get into the rhythm of things, stopping overnight in the beautifully quaint Lamjung villages of Bhulbhule (840m) and Jagat (1300m). The only traffic on the trail consists of donkey caravans, trekkers and local porters carrying incredibly large baskets of goods strapped on around their head.
I'm trekking with a group of five, Mike (USA), Ryan (Canada), Rachel (Canada), Julien (France) and Yam-dai, my nepali porter I took the luxury of taking on in Pokhara. Day three takes us into the Manang district: Tal (1700m) sits alongside a fairly flat stretch of the river and has an old Wild West feel to it. We continue up to Dharapani (1860m) to sleep in a rustic wooden lodge after a dinner of decent local Daal Bhat. By now it's starting to become cold at night. Above Dharapani we trek through farmland and sparse forest of blue pine, spruce, maple and oak. As we ascend, the morning drizzle gradually turns to rain, and by the evening, as we're sat frying our clothes around a stove in a lodge in Chame (2670m), it starts to snow.
By the morning, it has stopped snowing but the landscape is now decorated by a 3-inch thick layer of fresh white powder, which gradually becomes deeper and deeper as we continue up the valley. In the afternoon it begins to snow heavily again, and by the time we arrive in Pisang (3200m) I'm exhausted from the extertion of the trek through the snow storm. I'm beginning to notice the effects of the altitude, having less breathable oxygen I have to breath more and walk slower.
After a good night's rest I feel better, but it's still snowing heavily. Yam-dai recommends we stay to see what the weather does. We have a discussion with fellow Canadian trekkers Drew, Kimberlee and Jennifer, about avalanche risk, and decide to forge on. This turns out to be one of the toughest days of the trek, struggling up the valley in a heavy snow storm, trekking through snow up to our knees and waists at some points. After a stop for lunch, we see a large avalanche the opposite side of the valley, roaring like thunder for minutes. An Estonian trekker passes us heading the opposite direction, he stayed up at High Camp, got liquid in his lungs (a symptom of HAPE) and is heading down again. A large group of Israelis pass us telling us we cannot go on - "See you in the papers", one of them says. They seem a bit bitter that their guides have told them to head down. Another couple are carrying mountain bikes down through the snow, I don't know what they were thinking. And a local porter wearing flip-flops curses as his leg sinks knee-deep into the snow. Finally, after a long slog, the storm abates and we arrive tired but alive in Manang (3540m) in the afternoon.
At Manang we decide on an aclimatization day, doing a half-day trek up the hillside to a cave above 4000m where a 91-year old Lama offers us a blessing for the pass. His blind wife sits by his side spinning a prayer wheel and chanting. They've been living in this cave house for over 30 years. Back in Manang, we attend a very informative seminar on altitude sickness offered by the Himalayan Rescue Association, an NGO. And in the evening Mike, Ryan and myself check out the quaintest cinema in the world, a small wooden building with a large stove inside to keep the three of us warm as we watch Kundun. In Manang, everything is white after days of snow, many people have been stopped here for days waiting for the weather to clear, it seems we arrived on the right day. The mountains loom large above us, snow blowing off the high peaks of Gangapurna (7445m) and Annapurnas III (7555m), IV (7525m) and II (7957m).
The following day we ascend slowly but surely along the snowy trail to Yak Kharka, the last proper village before the pass. Five baby yaks died here last night, having been unable to eat due to the snow cover, unusually deep and late this year. In the evening, Yam-dai takes Julien and myself to a local kitchen where we feast on fresh Yak meat, my first meat this year, but tasty and full of good trekking proteins.
Our final day before the pass takes us to Thorung Phedi, a trekkers settlement at 4450m from which we attack the pass the next day. Walking along a ledge in a landslide area, Mike slips and falls precariously close to a near-vertical 200m drop. Luckily I'm close enough to get a hand to him before anything more serious happens. We meet a German couple heading down. Apparently they got lost in bad weather near the past and, unable to continue, the guy spent 19 hours outside overnight in 2 sleeping bags while his girlfriend and guide went down for help. The guy had frostbite and they both looked quite shaken up. Over dinner at Thorung Phedi we're all quite serious and concentrated on the task ahead.
The big day arrives, Ryan and I overslept and we end up leaving quite a bit later than planned at around 06:30. It's slow going in the thin air. After a brief toilet stop at High Camp, we continue upwards. I concentrate on breathing with each step and on putting one foot in front of the other, slowly but without many stops until finally I arrive at the prayer flags and stone-pile temples marking the Thorung La pass (5416m). Feeling tired but happy I explore the area nearby, placing my own stone on one the highest temple. The others arrive shortly behind me, we celebrate, take photos and dig into our "summit food" (mainly chocolate) before starting down the other side. The sky is an incredibly deep blue, by now the heat of the sun is ferocious, and reflects upwards off the snow. The long descent down to Muktinath (3760m) is a slog through increasingly slushy and muddy snow atop the scree morains. At times it feels like skiing without skis, and at one point I slide down a 50m slop on my behind, a fun interlude. After several tiring hours, coming around a corner I'm happy to finally spot a tea-shop, where we regroup and have a well-deserved rest and feed on noodles and beer.
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