Blogs from Annapurna, Nepal, Asia - page 40

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up and knew something was wrong. I was sick. Big time. I was prepared to get any number of stomach ailments. I came fully stocked with 5 years worth of Immodium, as well as several super-duper antibiotic pills my doc said would knock out any diaherreal problems I might face. But did I get a stomach ailment? Noooooo. I got a nasty, horrible cold. And I had no cold medicine. No cough syrup, throat lozenges, sinus meds. None. Nothing. It was one of those colds that starts with a sore throat and a chest filled with phlegm, but no way to cough it up because it hurts too much to cough. And the head is all fuzzy with that "I'm sick with the flu" feeling. This one ... read more

It was a long walk through the village to get to a trail, including a stop at our first checkpost, where our Annapurna permits were checked and stamped, and our names entered into a book. A chart on the wall showed that the vast majority of people hiking in the region were French, followed by Israelis and British, with only 300-something Americans having hiked in Annapurna last year. We're a tiny minority of the people who come here to trek. It started off beautifully, a pleasant ramble on a well-traveled footpath through villages made up of only a handful of homes set around a communal water faucet. Children, even the tiniest ones, would emerge shouting "namaste, namaste, namaste," the Nepali word for hello, goodbye and a lot of other things. I always liked the interpretation one ... read more

…the Trek - where to start? I think this hike was one of the hardest physical things I have ever done, but as with most challenges, it was also the most rewarding. The scenery was beautiful, the people were lovely and friendly and the strain on the old body felt goods - or feels good now - 3 days later :). We ended up finishing the trek in 15 days without taking a break. Its hard to say if it would have been better to have a break and stay at the high altitude or finish how we did - I guess we’ll never know. The only bad part of not having a break was that I think I mentally ended the trek on day 10 after the Pass, so then it was not only 7-8 ... read more

The Annapurna Circuit can easily be divided into two halves. The Thorung La makes a nice crease betwen the up and the down of the trail. If you could imagine an equilateral triangle...The Thorung La would be the point at the top. ***Thorung Phedi...White*** Phedi means foot in Nepalese. This little outpost was situated at, 4,400 meters and this is where we continue our journey around the circuit. After leaving Tilicho Tal (lake) we headed towards the town of Thorung Phedi. The beautiful blues were replaced by sideways rain that was eventually replaced by sleet and then snow. The next morning we were supposed to climb over the pass...another 1000 meters up. It wasn't to be. The snow was higher than our knees and we knew that higher up the mountain anything could happen. The pass ... read more

.....while i kiss the sky. Wow. That's about all i can say about the 16 day jaunt max and i just took around the annapurna circuit. It's more or less the ultimate hut trip. I would hardly call it roughing it. Yes, we wimped out and hired a porter/guide. Perhaps we did not go balls to the wall, but not having incredible loads i think brought a lot more enjoyment to the both of us. It was really nice to know that at the end of the day, we did not have to set up our shelter, cook our dinner, and crawl, dirty, into our sleeping bags. After a hard day of climbing, we could take a shower (of varying quality obviously) at most places, then sit down to some hot tea and wait while a ... read more