Day by Day
Days 1 to 3 Kathmandu The Sacred Valley
Arrive at Tribhuvan International Airport and transfer to the boutique hotel with a traditional welcome. The expedition briefing that evening covers the full 16-day journey: the route from Pokhara through the Modi Khola foothills to the Annapurna Sanctuary, the altitude profile from the lower valley to base camp at 4,130 metres, the acclimatization approach for the high section, and what to expect from the gateway gorge above Dovan. The Annapurna Conservation Area permit and the TIMS trekking permit are arranged during these days.
Swayambhunath, the hilltop stupa above the western edge of Kathmandu, is one of the oldest Buddhist sites in Nepal. The approach up the eastern staircase passes 365 stone steps lined with prayer wheels and carved images that have been there long enough to wear smooth from contact. The stupa at the top, with its painted eyes looking out across the valley in all four directions, is the image of Kathmandu that most visitors carry home. Pashupatinath on the Bagmati river is different in character and equally essential: a working Hindu temple where the cremation ghats are in continuous use, the sadhus receive visitors in the outer courtyards, and the religious life of a living tradition is visible without the mediation of a museum or a heritage site. Boudhanath’s stupa, one of the largest in the world, rises above the ring of monasteries and residences of the Tibetan Buddhist community that has made this neighbourhood its centre since the 1950s. The guided tour of Durbar Square and the lanes of Kirtipur on the final Kathmandu day provide the Newari artistic context for what will be seen at Bhaktapur on the return.
Stay: Luxury Boutique Hotel in Kathmandu
Days 4 to 6 Pokhara to Landruk Lakeside and the Foothills
The drive from Kathmandu to Pokhara follows the Prithvi Highway west through the middle hills, the Annapurna range appearing above the southern ridgeline as the road approaches the lake city. Pokhara at 800 metres sits directly below the full southern face of the massif. Phewa Lake in the early morning, when the water is still and the reflection of Machhapuchhre and the Annapurna group is visible on the surface, is one of those places that photographs well and is better in person. A row across the lake before the wind arrives provides the first encounter with the scale of the mountains that will frame the next ten days of walking.
The trek begins from Nayapul by road from Pokhara, the trail ascending immediately into the terraced farmland of the Modi Khola foothills. The Gurung and Magar villages of this section are among the most traditional on any approach route in the Annapurna region. The stone houses, the terraced fields worked by hand and by animal, and the communities whose families have provided soldiers to the Gurkha regiments of the British and Indian armies for two centuries reflect a way of life that the altitude and the terrain have preserved. The first views of the Annapurna range from the ridge above Landruk, with the sanctuary peaks above and the Modi Khola valley below, provide the visual context for the days ahead.
Stay: Luxury Hotel in Pokhara then Best Available Mountain Lodges
Days 7 to 9 Chomrong to the Sanctuary The Rhododendron Ridge
Chomrong at 2,170 metres is the last substantial village before the gorge. The approach from Chomrong to Dovan follows the Modi Khola through forest that changes character with altitude: rhododendron and oak in the lower section, giving way to bamboo and then to the sub-alpine growth of the higher gorge. In the spring months the rhododendron is in bloom along this section, the flowers visible in shades of red and pink on the hillsides above the trail.
The Hinko Cave above Dovan is a landmark with specific history. The overhanging rock that forms the cave is large enough to have sheltered the entire team of Chris Bonington’s 1970 British expedition during their approach to the South Face. The South Face of Annapurna was the most technically demanding Himalayan objective of its era: a 3,000-metre wall of rock and ice that had never been attempted before Bonington’s team arrived beneath it. The cave is simply a feature of the gorge, but knowing what it was used for and by whom gives the approach a weight that the walk alone does not provide. Above the cave the gorge narrows to its tightest point, the walls of Hiunchuli on the left and the south-west ridge of Machhapuchhre on the right forming the gateway into the sanctuary. Walking through this gateway is walking into a place that most people on earth will never see.
The sanctuary opens on the far side of the gateway into the wide glacial basin. The peaks that were visible in fragments through the gorge are now visible in full: the immense south face of Annapurna I above, the perfect pyramid of Machhapuchhre to the east, Hiunchuli and Annapurna South to the south. The base camp lodges at 4,130 metres sit on the moraine above the South Annapurna Glacier, the surrounding peaks filling the sky in all directions.
Stay: Best Available Mountain Lodges and Annapurna Base Camp Lodge
Day 10 Annapurna Base Camp The Throne Room
The full day at Annapurna Base Camp at 4,130 metres is the centre of the expedition. The near-complete circle of peaks visible from the camp, Annapurna I, Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Machhapuchhre, Annapurna III, Gangapurna, and Annapurna IV, is the view that gives the sanctuary its name. The term throne room of the gods has been in use since the first trekking expeditions visited in the 1960s, and the phrase is accurate in the sense that the scale and completeness of the encircling peaks produce an experience that is unlike any other high-altitude viewpoint in Nepal. The morning hours before the cloud builds are the clearest, and an early walk around the moraine gives different perspectives on the surrounding faces as the light changes across them.
The South Face of Annapurna, visible from the base camp, is the wall that defined a new era in Himalayan mountaineering when Bonington’s team climbed it in 1970. Before that ascent, the technical difficulty of Himalayan climbing had been defined by the standard ridge routes. The South Face required the application of Alpine techniques to an 8,000-metre objective for the first time. Standing at the base camp with that face above is a position at the intersection of the mountain’s natural grandeur and its human history, and both are present simultaneously.
Stay: Annapurna Base Camp Lodge
Days 11 to 13 Ghandruk and Jhinudanda The Homeward Path
The descent from the sanctuary retraces the approach through the gateway gorge and the rhododendron forest. The gorge on the way down has a different quality from the gorge on the way up: the urgency of gaining altitude is gone, and the forest and the river are available for attention in a way they were not before. Ghandruk at 1,940 metres is one of the largest and best-preserved Gurung villages in the Annapurna region. The stone houses, the strong community identity, and the Annapurna Conservation Area Project regional centre here give the village a character that the smaller trail settlements do not have.
The natural hot springs at Jhinudanda are a short detour north of the main trail, a series of geothermal pools at the river’s edge where the water emerges warm enough for bathing. After the altitude of the sanctuary and two days of descent through the gorge, an hour at the Jhinudanda pools provides a restorative that no lodge shower can replicate. The terraced fields visible from the springs, dropping in steps toward the Modi Khola below, are irrigated from channels the Gurung communities have maintained for generations. The lower Annapurna foothills at this altitude, with the high peaks visible above and the cultivated valley below, have a quality of completeness that the high terrain does not: a landscape shaped by both the mountain and the people who have lived below it.
Stay: Best Available Mountain Lodges
Days 14 to 16 Kathmandu Patan, Bhaktapur, and Farewell
Return to Kathmandu by road from Pokhara or by a short flight that passes the Manaslu and Ganesh Himal massifs on the western approach, the mountains visible from the aircraft in a scale that gives a final sense of the terrain just crossed on foot. The final days in Kathmandu are devoted to the medieval cities of the valley. Patan’s Golden Temple, formally known as Hiranya Varna Mahavihar, is a Buddhist monastery complex in the centre of the old city whose courtyard and gilded facades represent one of the finest examples of Newari religious architecture in Nepal, in continuous use since the twelfth century.
Bhaktapur is the most intact of the three valley’s medieval royal cities: the streets within the old city are free of motor traffic and the Newari architecture lining them is preserved in a concentration that makes the city feel genuinely medieval. The Peacock Window on the outer wall of the Palace of Fifty-Five Windows is the most celebrated single example of Newari woodcarving in Nepal: a lattice of carved peacock feathers in stone and timber worked by artisans across generations, the detail so fine that individual feathers are visible in the carving. The farewell dinner in Kathmandu that evening, with traditional Newari cuisine and the full guide team present, is a proper close to an expedition that has moved from the sacred streets of the capital to the glacial silence of the Annapurna Sanctuary and back.
Stay: Luxury Boutique Hotel in Kathmandu
