The Annapurna Circuit

Well... I didn't get to write this blog post as soon as I would have hoped. The day we got back from our trek I was demolished by a fever, and just now I'm feeling up to writing about our adventures.

We had a 2 week holiday from school for the Dashain festival here. We decided to take advantage by embarking on one of the most beautiful and diverse walks on Earth! The Annapurna Circuit offers everything from Hawaiian jungles, to Colorado foothills, Pacific Northwest forests, Nevada deserts, and the incomparable high Himalaya.

Our journey got off to a little bit of a rough start. We got into Kathmandu too late, but thankfully we found ourselves a bus. The guy told us , "Yes, the bus leaves in 15 minutes, and you'll be to Dumre by 10 pm." Great! We can probably still find a lodge open that late! Unfortunately the bus didn't leave for 2 hours and the ride took twice as long as planned, putting us in Dumre at 2:40 AM. Thankfully the friendly neighborhood armed police found us a place to sleep for 3 hours before we had to wake up for the bus to the trail head. At 6 AM the same police showed us to our bus which was already full, so we snagged spots on the roof, in the rain, for the next hour. BUT we were stoked to hit the trail!! 30 seconds after starting, we made our first wrong turn, but thankfully the Nepalis are friendly and they redirected us onto the real trail. And off we went!

The only plan we had was to be back in 14 days and hike as far as we could (there is a road on the 2nd half of the trek so you can catch a ride out). 

Along the trek we experienced:
-Some sketchy muddy hot springs, followed by a leech-filled death march back to our lodge.
-An ever so friendly German named Moritz.
-Some not-so-sketchy hot springs with the locals, and they laughed at us when we would hop in the cold river.
-The glory and magic that is Seabuckthorn Juice.
-A high mountain Buddhist monastery with free lemon tea.
-"Rapp Mix": a home-brewed concoction of granola with a variety of artery clogging additives.
-"Denro": a local buckwheat delicacy that is more dense than a black hole and takes weeks to digest
-A frigid dip in Ice Lake above 15,000 ft!
-A great group of Israelis that somehow ended up in the same lodge 5 times!
-Being spanked by a young Nepali girl because I wouldn't give her chocolate. I should have just picked her up and carried her a mile or two so she wouldn't do that again!
-Thorong La Pass at 17,769 ft.
- And one more hot springs for good measure.


And after only 13 days we ended up completing the entire Annapurna Circuit! Definitely one of the most fun things I've ever had the privilege of doing!

I'll be back to do it again someday! Hopefully on a bicycle!

Elliott happy to be alive!

Stoked on views of the Annapurnas

Ice Lake

On top of Thorong La Pass!