Annapurna Base Camp Trek

Pokhara, and the good news about it

The flight from Kathmandu is twenty-five minutes into a proper airport on flat ground at 830 m. It is not Lukla. Weather delays happen and they are measured in hours rather than days, and if the flight goes at all it goes. This is the single largest practical difference between an Annapurna trek and an Everest one, and it is why this itinerary needs no spare day at the end.

The drive is a real alternative

Kathmandu to Pokhara is six to seven hours on the Prithvi Highway along the Trishuli river, and about twenty dollars on a tourist coach. Some people would rather see the country than skip it, and on a trip where nothing depends on the timing it is a legitimate choice rather than a compromise. Tell us which you want when you book.

The road keeps moving the trailhead

Nayapul used to be where everybody started and the jeep track now runs well past it, which shortens the first day and lengthens the argument about where the trek really begins. We drive to where the road is passable on your dates and walk from there. In practice this means day 3 is between four and five hours whatever the road has done.

Getting out early, if you need to

There is no helicopter pad at Base Camp but there are landing spots at Machhapuchhre Base Camp and Chhomrong, and a charter to Pokhara is around $2,500 for the aircraft rather than per seat. For a non-emergency exit, the road at Jhinu is a day's walk from almost anywhere on the upper trail, which is a genuine advantage over the Khumbu.

14 nights, and what each one is

Heat, hot water, power and signal

Heating

One stove in the dining room, lit at dusk. Bedrooms are not heated at any altitude.

Hot shower

Up to Chhomrong, $2–5, gas or solar. Nothing above Deurali.

Charging

$2–4 a device in the dining room. Take a power bank; the sanctuary lodges run on solar and a cloudy day means no sockets.

Wifi

Free or a couple of dollars in most lodges to Chhomrong, patchy above it, nothing at Base Camp.

Phone signal

Ncell and NTC cover the trail to Chhomrong well and the gorge badly. There is usually a bar at Machhapuchhre Base Camp.

Water

Boiled water $1–3 a litre depending on altitude. Safe drinking water stations at several villages are cheaper and we would rather you used those.

Sleeping bag

Provided, rated to −10°C. Yours to use, ours to keep.

Bedding

A mattress, a pillow and a blanket. The bag goes on top of that, not instead of it.

If you eat differently

Twelve weeks, and what to do in each of them

Written for somebody who walks a bit and does not train. If you already run or cycle regularly, start at the eight-week block. Nothing here needs a gym.

1. 1

   Eight weeks out

   Build the base

   Three cardio sessions a week, 40 minutes each, at a pace where you can still hold a conversation. Walking, cycling, swimming, rowing, whichever you will actually do. If you do one thing on this list, do this one.

2. 2

   Six weeks out

   Find some stairs

   Replace one session with stairs, and mean it: a stairwell, a stadium, a steep hill path, 30 to 40 minutes of up and down. This trek is a staircase and general fitness does not prepare the specific muscles that a staircase uses.

3. 3

   Five weeks out

   Put the boots on

   Start walking in the boots you will trek in, every time, and add a daypack loaded to 5 kg. Blisters end more Annapurna treks than altitude does and they are entirely preventable in the eight weeks before you fly.

4. 4

   Four weeks out

   Train the downhill

   Find a hill with 300 m of descent and walk down it repeatedly, with poles. Your quads take more punishment coming off Poon Hill and out of Chhomrong than they do going up anything, and downhill is the one thing almost nobody trains.

5. 5

   Three weeks out

   Back-to-back days

   A long day at the weekend, four to five hours, then two to three hours the next morning on tired legs. Consecutive days are what the trek actually is and a single long walk does not simulate them.

6. 6

   One week out

   Stop

   Halve the volume and keep the frequency. Nothing you do in the last week makes you fitter and a surprising amount of it can injure you. Sleep instead, and break in nothing new.

What we do about it, in order

1. 1

   Twice a day above Chhomrong, we measure

   Your guide carries a pulse oximeter and takes your oxygen saturation and pulse each evening from Dovan upward, and again any morning you are not right. The numbers are written down, so a slide over two days is visible rather than a matter of opinion.

2. 2

   If it is mild, we drop to Deurali

   Four hundred metres of descent from Machhapuchhre Base Camp, and a night there. Most cases end at this step and go up again the following morning.

3. 3

   If it is not, we go down properly

   Descent is the only treatment that works. From anywhere on the upper trail, Chhomrong at 2,150 m is reachable in a long day and that is low enough for anything short of an emergency. This is not a decision we put to a vote.

4. 4

   If we have to, we fly

   Helicopters land at Machhapuchhre Base Camp and at Chhomrong and reach Pokhara in twenty-five minutes. This is what your insurance is for: the bill is $2,500 to $4,000 and the aircraft will not lift without a guarantee.

5. 5

   The road is closer than it looks

   Unlike the Khumbu, this trek is never more than about a day and a half from a jeep. That changes what a bad night at altitude actually means here, and it is worth knowing before you need it.

Who walks with you

A government-licensed guide with wilderness first aid training leads every departure, and one porter carries for every two trekkers. From 11 trekkers a second guide joins, so nobody is ever at the back of a long line on their own. Our guides are from the hills they take you into.

What a porter carries, and what they do not

Twenty kilos, which is your duffel and one other. That is below the 25 kg the trekking association permits and well below what you will see on the trail. If your bag is over, it is split rather than piled on. Porters carry loads, not daypacks: your water, camera, jacket and the day's snacks stay with you.

How they are paid and insured

Salary, insurance, food and lodging for every guide and porter are inside the price you pay, not something raised on the trail. Every one of them is insured for altitude and for helicopter evacuation on the same terms we ask of you. There is a long history in this industry of porters carrying too much in the wrong boots for money nobody would take at home, and the only way not to be part of it is to pay for it in the package price.

Tipping

Customary, not compulsory, and never a substitute for the wage. What is usual for this trip is $120 to $180 per traveller for the whole team, handed over together on the last evening rather than daily. Your guide will not ask and will be embarrassed if you do it in front of the group.

Water, and the bottles we do not sell you

A traveller drinking bottled water gets through around 25 plastic bottles on this trip, every one of which was carried in and has to be carried out again. Boiled water is available at every lodge for a dollar or two a litre and we would rather you bought that. Take purification as a backup, not as your plan.

What we carry out

Everything we carry in that is not food. The Annapurna Sanctuary has a rubbish problem it did not create and cannot solve on its own, and the least any operator can do is not add to it.

Where the money stays

The lodges are family businesses in the villages you pass through. The guides and porters live in this district. The ACAP fee funds the conservation area, which is run by a national trust rather than by the government and puts a documented share of it back into the villages you walk through. Almost all of what you pay is spent within a few days' walk of the trail, which is the argument for using a Nepali operator rather than a foreign one that subcontracts to us anyway.

It is a place people live

Ask before photographing anybody. Walk on the mountain side of a mule train, not the drop side, and let it pass. Monasteries welcome visitors and they are not attractions; take your hat off and your shoes off, and if a service is happening, wait.

How to start

Write to us, or send a message on WhatsApp, and tell us roughly when. You will get a reply from somebody who has been on this trip, not a form. Nothing is owed at that stage and there is no obligation at any point before you pay a deposit.

The deposit

Thirty per cent to hold your dates, and the balance when you arrive in Kathmandu, in cash or by card. We ask for a passport copy, your insurance certificate and any dietary or medical notes at the same time.

Paying

Bank transfer, or card through a secure link. Card payments carry the bank's fee of about 4 per cent, which we show you before you pay rather than after. The balance in Kathmandu can be US dollars, pounds, euros or Nepali rupees.

If you cancel

More than 30 days out, the deposit transfers to any other date or trip we run, with no time limit. Inside 30 days the deposit is retained, because the permits, the flights and the crew are booked by then. If we cancel for any reason other than weather, you get everything back.

Private, or with a group

Both cost the same for a party of five or more. A private departure runs on your dates at your pace and can be arranged for one person; a group departure runs on the dates in the table above. Most people book privately and are surprised it costs no more.

Booking late

A week is enough outside October, because nothing here depends on a seat on a nineteen-seat aircraft. In October the lodges at Machhapuchhre Base Camp are the constraint rather than the flights, and we want a month.