The Annapurna Circut

We're now in Pokhara, an indolent city (by Nepali standards) nestled at the bottom of a lush valley and on the shore of a lake.  The Annapurna massif looms to the north, and Macchupuchhre (Mt. Fishtail) stands sentinel.  Fishtail is small by Himalayan standards (standing only a mere 6993 meters) but it has panache.  I recommend goggling a photo of it.

I have an awful lot to talk about but I will spare you all most of the details.  We've experienced so much in the past two weeks and it's impossible to write about it all but here is a quick summary.  I apologize for its length.

There is very good reason why the Annapurna circuit was and probably still is one of the world's great treks.  The trek is a giant loop, beginning at a town called Besi Sahar at around 700 meters and following the Marsyangdi River up to its source, slowly climbing up to 5416 meters at the Thorung La Pass, and then slowly descending to its terminus at at town called Naya Pul sitting at 1000 meters.  The trek circles the Annapurna Himal which includes a bunch of monstrous peaks -- Annapurna I (8091 meters), Annapurna II (7937 m), Annapurna III (7555 m), Annapurna IV (7525 m), Annapurna South (7219 m), Gangapurna (7454 m) and many more about 7000 and 6000 meters.  To the east of the circuit, and always in view during the first 8 days of the trek, is the Manaslu massif which includes a bunch of big peaks but most prominently Manaslu (8126 m).  To the west of the circuit, and coming into view once you cross the pass, is the Daulagiri Himal which includes a bevy of big mountians but most prominently Daulagiri (8126 m -- the exact same elevation as Manaslu).  So no matter where you are on the circuit you're looking up at astoundingly enormous peaks, heavily glaciated, and appearing both terrible and awe-inspiring at the same time.

What makes the Annapurna circuit special is the transition -- both in landscape and culture -- as you ascend towards the pass.  You begin in the foothills which are clothed in lush tropical rainforest.  The trail then ascends through sun-splashed fields of rice paddies, millet and barley, tiered on the steep slopes of the verdant valley, and the river below a torrent of melted snow, terrifingly powerful, and everywhere ridiculously, towering waterfalls plunging from up high (500 feet registering on the ho-hum side of the scale).  Down low the people are predominantly Hindu.  Then as you climb further up the scenery slowly begins to change and so do the people.  Further up are predominantly Tibetan Buddhists, gompas and stupas in every village you pass, prayer flags flapping in the cold Himalayan wind.  The forest transistions to rhododendran and bambo, then eventually pine.  You're no longer staring at big peaks in the distance, you're now standing at their feet.  The variety of monkeys change too.  Lower down are predominantly rhesus macaques, a troop of which we watched on day 3 or 4 on the side of the cliff, some haphazardly throwing themselves off only to catch themselves at the last moment on the branch of a rhododendron tree 30 feet below, others languidly searching for lice in the fur of their mates.  Further up are the slender common langurs with grey fur and black faces.  We caught a glimspse of three langurs at around 3000 meters in a mixed rhododendron, pine forest.  I was atwitter with joy as usual.  I like monkeys.

Then at around day 7 the forest subsidies and the vegetation becomes sparse, mostly tundra.  The slopes of the valley are littered with yaks (which apparently only live at higher elevations, probably mostly owing to their thick fur) and Himalayan mountain goat.  The views of the big peaks become utterly staggering -- you're completely surrounded by the monstrosities.  The air becomes frigid, the cold wind blowing off the Annapurna and Gangapurna glaciers.  Then you cross the pass, a moonscape devoid of vegetation, just rock and ice, and catch your first glimpse of the other side where Daulagiri rises violently to the west, and the desert hills of Mustang roll off to the north.  You descend to a village called Muktinath which has a Buddhist and Hindu temple, but its the Hindu temple that attracts thousands of Hindu pilgrims every year to worship.  Which is why, I've concluded, the Nepali government decided to build a road all the way to Muktinath (essentially following, and in many places gobbling up, the second part of the circuit trail) -- so the wealthy Indian pilgrims could get there without having to hike.  For reasons I won't get into (but largely because we didn't want to have to pay our guide additional money) we decided to take advantage of the road and take a jeep to a town called Ghasa, essentially skipping about a 1/4 of the circuit.  We were supposed to take a bus even further (to a town called Tatopani) but we felt guilty about it so we told our guide (who wasn't pleased with our decision) that we wanted to walk to Tatopani.  From Tatopani you walk up a brutally steep hill (Nepalis consider a 4000 meter mountain a hill, and a 6000 meter peak a "small mountain") some 1600 meters to get a titillating view of the Daulgiri and Annapurna Himals, and then descend back down to 1000 meters through rhododendron forest, then tiered rice fields, then lust tropical rain forest.

While the entire trek was special some moments stood out:

1.  I asked our guide -- Nurbu Sherpa -- before we started hiking when we'd see the big mountains.  Both Erin and I were eager to catch a glimpse of one since we'd been in Nepal for 6 days and still hadn't seen one.  I think he misunderstood my question and said it would be a few days.  The next day -- Day 1 of our trek -- we were walking alongside the river and rounded a corner.  Erin saw it before I did but she didn't say anything.  There standing at the end of the valley was Manaslu and Lamsung.  I nearly shit myself.  I turned around to point it out to Erin and she was crying I think.  We were both speechless.  It is impossible to put into words what I thought that very moment; and it's impossible to describe what I saw.  As I said before I had seen nothing in my life -- including the Andes, the Alaska Range, the Greater Caucuses, the Rockies -- to prepare me for that moment.  The scale is all together other worldly.  The mountains were 30 kilometers away but it felt like you could reach out and scoop up a handful of snow from their flanks.  It was an emotional moment I will never forget.

2.  Rounding the corner on Day 3 or 4 and seeing Annapurna II for the first time.  We were literally at its feet, around 2800 meters.  Annapurna II stands almost 8000 meters high.  I couldn't peel my eyes from its fluted east face.  My toes ached that night from stumbling over a legion of rocks and roots and my neck hurt from staring towards the heavens all day.

3.  Hanging out in Manang.  Manang is a Tibetan Buddhist village at 3500 meters.  Most trekkers spend a couple of days there acclimitizing.  We spent 3 because both of us fell ill and didn't have the strenght to move on.  I'm glad we did.  And in hindsight I wished we had spent a few more days there.  The views of Annapurna II and Gangapurna were absolutely mind-blowing.  At night the yaks exchanged plaintive bugles, and the bells tied around the necks of the Himalayan goats tinkled under our windowsill.  From our room we stared at the north faces of Annapurna II and Gangapurna for hours, captivated, inspecting each crevice and fold of snow, wondering where the next avalanche would plummet down its terrible flank.

4.  Crossing the Thorung La Pass.  Nurbu insisted that we wake at 4:00 in the morning at Thorung Phedi (the village at the foot of the pass) to begin our 1000 meter ascent so that we'd avoid the heavy cold winds that often blow across the moonscape of dirt, boulders and ice.  We started at 4:45 in pitch black.  Other trekkers had the same idea but many got started earlier, so when we looked up the imposing slope we could see a train of headlamps angling towards the nightsky, zig-zagging up the switchbacks.  I was slightly ahead of Erin and Nurbu, stopping occassionaly to make sure she was doing fine (any misgiving I had -- mostly due to the fact that we were both still fighting off a cold -- was quickly dispelled the day before when we did a day hike to 4900 meters and she made it look a walk in the park), my toes turning to stone and my snot freezing into icicles in my beard.  About 200 feet from the pass, the prayers flags whipping in the wind, I stopped to wait for Erin so that we could walk over it together and watched the sun raise its firey crown over the top of Chulu East.  I had another squishy moment.  They say at elevation it is easy to sucumb to very powerful emotions.  Well, to be quite frank, I did.  I thought of my mother and father who are no longer here but whose spirits I swore swirled above.  Perhaps the prayer flags beckoned them.  And I thought about how grateful I am to them for having given me the opportunity to be where I was at that moment, watching the sun come up over the Himalayas, ice-bound peaks all around emanating an ethereal glow.

5.  Descending through the ancient rhododendron forest below Ghorepani.  Coincidentally the day before I had  pondered whether there were any pristine primary growth forests in Nepal -- most of the forests in Nepal have already been denuded for farming.  I was soon to know the answer.  We left the village of Ghorepani which sat on a saddle of about 2800 meters and immediately descended into a forest of myth and magic -- primeval rhodedendron trees with gnarled twisting limbs, and trunks laden with moss and epiphytes and strangled with vines.  The sunlight mottled the forest floor, the leaves of the epiphytes glowing phospherent green.  I felt like Frodo Baggins wandering through Fangorn, with Treebeard murmuring to his Ent-hordes and elves prancing on light feet in the shadows.  I told Erin that the ancient wood may have been the highlight of the trip for me and she thought I had smoked some of it.  I like forests (as much as I like monkeys -- you put them together and I can't hold my bladder).  And this one was unlike any forest I had every seen. 

6.  Nurbu's son and our porter, Karma Sherpa.  He's 18 years old.  He spent 8 years in a Buddhist monastery.  He thought he wanted to be a lama.  He found out that he didn't.  He has a heart and soul as innocent and pure as I've ever witnessed.  He's shy and docile.  His smile could light up the east face of Gangapurna.  He wants to become a mountaineering guide (he also wants to reunite with his little lover in his sherpa village in the Makalu province, in the shadow of Makalu (another 8000 meter peak)).  Erin and I are thinking of ways to help him.  I don't think I've ever met someone who I barely knew that I wanted to help out more than Karma.  The kid has nothing materially -- he lives in the same room with mom and dad and sisters and brothers in Kathmandu -- but he has the spiritual stuff to be a shining beacon.  He just needs a little help.
I would be remiss to not talk about the bad things about the trek.  Trekker traffic has got to be #1.  Trekkers come in droves from all over the world (but mostly from France).  It turns out the French like the circuit so much because it was a Frenchman who first ascended Annapurna I.  A French couple told me that -- overflowing with arrogant pride.  I think they were surprised and maybe a little miffed when I merely nodded my head in approbation -- I think maybe they expected me to say something like "yes, of course it was a Frenchman, how could it have been any one else.  We Wee."  Sorry for the francophobic comment -- its just that we've been surrounded by them for two weeks and the overwhelming majority of them have not been friendly.  There were exceptions but they were few.

As a result of the high trekker traffic more teahouses are being built, resulting in further denuding of the conservation area's already unhealthy forest.  And because of the high volume of trekkers, most of whom aren't very friendly and have little to no trail etiquette, it is nearly impossible to pass large groups on the trail without endangering your life -- as they have absolutely no compulsion to stop and move over to let you by.

Lastly the road building -- on both sides of the Annapurna massif -- is going to eventually destroy the trek.  It has already tainted the second part of it.  The Nepali government is now planning to build the road on the first part all the way to Manang which would be a shame.  With roads come trucks and motorcycles and cars.  Nurbu pointed out that since the road was built along the second part of the circuit the economy of the villages in between have nearly collapsed since most trekkers prefer to take a jeep -- after all who wants to walk on a dusty road.  The road building, which is not to any standard of construction whatsoever, has also resulted in massive landslides, causing huge amounts of earth and rock to crash into the rivers below.  It is quite sad to see.

Notwithstanding the bad things, it's still an amazing trek and I would recommend it to anyone.

So today we rest and probably tomorrow and the day after and maybe the day after that.  Erin's looking into a yoga retreat in the foothills.  Eventually we'll make our way back to Kathmandu and see about volunteer opportunities.  It's been frustrating on that front since all the organizations want us to pay to work for free.  I think we might have to wait until Laos (where there is at least one organization that will allow us to teach some Buddhist monks english for a week without paying a fee).  If we don't volunteer here I think we'll do another trek -- this time to the Langtang region which is north of Kathmandu.  Smaller mountains (7200 meters being the tallest) but less crowds.

Hope everyone is well and again I apologize for being wordy.