March 4
March 4 Day 4 Upper Pisang to Ngawal In the middle of the night I heard a roar. My first thought was thunder, but the sky was clear. It was an avalanche in the glacier bowl on Annapurna II. It faces Upper Pisang across the river valley and so is a natural amplifier. I rolled […]
March 3
March 3 Day 3 Chame to Upper Pisang There is a regular crew of trekkers on the circuit with many of the same target towns. Three young Spanish women who hike in tights, Jack from Taiwan, Marty from Los Angeles, three women from Australia who have hiked all over the world together, Patrice from […]
March 2
March 2 Tal to Chame I swore after yesterday that I wouldn’t do long days– I have plenty of time for this trek, but I found myself today pushing it to get to Chame, which is supposed to be one of the best towns on the circuit. A lot of road walking, though the roads […]
March 1
March 1 first day of Annapurna Circuit First days of a trek are always filled with possibility but also hesitation. I left well fortified as my pancake breakfast was mountainous, as was the rest of the day’s hike. It was curious to see many small sheds in the village which had fires inside but no […]
Feb 29 transportation day
Feb 29 a day of road transportation Today was a day of transport. To begin the Annapurna circuit, I needed to get to a village just north of Besishahar. Everyone warned of the road to Pokhara from Kathmandu, with good reason. It is paved and two lanes, but just barely, and it winds through narrow […]
Feb 25-27
Feb 25 – 27 Daily life in Kathmandu: I have taken off my trekking shoes for a few days to take care of some trek planning, catch up on correspondence, and get some writing done. Daily life in Kathmandu is now an exercise in familiarity, in part because my habits are so regular: waking early, […]
Feb 24
Feb 24 Woke in my favorite hotel with no electricity which is of course a regular occurrence in Kathmandu–power is only on about half the time. That is as much as I am roughing it back here in the city after my warm-up trek in Helambu. Technological differences tend to be what we first notice […]
Feb 23
Feb 23 A restless night, punctuated by snuffling dogs, moaning cattle, and some early rising Nepalis. The hike out for this part of the Helambu trek is pretty much all road walking and it turns out Timbu is the first stop for buses heading to Melamchi and even on to Kathmandu. Hmmm, the adventure of […]
Feb 22
Feb 22 An early morning gong booming, the singing of prayers by my friend, and the crowing of roosters stirred me out of bed. Today’s goal was Kakani, which should have made for a short walk, though I was having trouble reconciling my GPS device with the published Helambu map. On the map, Kakani is […]
Feb 21
Feb 21 A light rain last night cleared the wood smoke and haze from the air, and the sun shone on a bright morning at Hotel Namaste. I breakfasted outside on pancakes with yak butter which tastes much like cow’s butter only more oily and has a tang– that might be because they have no […]