Ghorepani Ghandruk Circuit Trek

The Panorama trek goes up to Ghorepani, climbs Poon Hill and comes back down the same valley. This one keeps going: east over the Deurali ridge to Tadapani, down through the forest to Ghandruk, and out on the far side of the horseshoe. It is two days longer, it never repeats a section, and it is the more complete walk of the two. Take the Panorama only if your calendar makes you.

It is one of the best there is. You sleep in teahouses every night, the highest bed is 2,874 m, a road is never far away, and you still get Dhaulagiri and the Annapurnas at sunrise. What it is not is an introductory sampler: five days of walking with two long staircases in it is a real trek, and people underestimate it precisely because it is low.

Fit enough to walk four to six hours on stone steps for five days running, carrying a light daypack. The six-week plan on this page is what we would give somebody reasonably active. The specific thing to train is stairs, up and down, because that is what this circuit is made of.

Yes, and this is the trek we recommend for families. The youngest we take is eight with a parent, the days are short enough to keep a child cheerful, and there is a hot shower and usually wifi at the end of each one. The dawn climb is the only part that asks for negotiation.

You can book as one person, and you will still have a guide with you: since April 2023 a licensed guide has been compulsory for foreign trekkers in the conservation area, and the Birethanti checkpoint enforces it. A private trek for one runs on your dates at $1,240 whether anybody else books or not.

It is something over three thousand stone steps, it climbs around 500 m, and it takes most people two to three hours. It is relentless rather than dangerous: the steps are wide, well built and dry in the trekking seasons. Porters go up it in under an hour, which is not a useful comparison for anybody. Poles, a slow rhythm and no shame about stopping are the whole technique.

It depends on the road. Nayapul at 1,070 m was the traditional trailhead and the jeep track now runs beyond Birethanti and Hile, and in dry conditions almost to Ulleri. We drive to where the surface is sound on your dates and start walking there, which keeps day 3 at three to four hours. We will not drive you to Ulleri to skip the staircase unless you ask us to.

The forest flowers from the bottom of the hill upwards. The lowest slopes near Ulleri start in the first week of March, the forest around Ghorepani reaches full density between the last week of March and the middle of April, and the highest stands are still colouring into early May. If the flowers are the reason you are coming, the first fortnight of April is the safest booking.

In peak October and early April there can be a few hundred people on the top and the last stretch of path is a slow line of headtorches. It is genuinely busy and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We leave earlier than most lodges do, and by eight in the morning, once you are past Deurali on the ridge east, you will barely see anybody all day.

Autumn for clarity and spring for colour. October and November give the most reliable mountain views of the year, and November adds thinner crowds once the festivals finish. March and April give you the rhododendron, which is the single most beautiful thing on this route, at the cost of a slightly hazier horizon.

It is unlikely. You sleep at 2,874 m for one night and stand at 3,210 m for an hour, and acute mountain sickness is uncommon below 3,000 m. A few people sleep poorly at Ghorepani and a few find the climb from Ulleri breathless, and that is usually the whole of it. Your guide checks your oxygen saturation at Ghorepani anyway, because rare is not the same as never.

Yes, and it is a condition of booking, even though the odds of using it here are small. Cover to 4,000 m is plenty for this route. A rescue flight to Pokhara is $2,000 to $3,500 and the aircraft will not lift without a guarantee of payment, which is not a conversation to be having on the day.

Comfortable, and better than most people expect. Ghandruk has some genuinely lovely stone houses with private bathrooms and proper beds. Ghorepani is the busiest and the coldest, with a big dining room and a stove at the centre of it. Every stop on the loop has a hot shower for two to four dollars, which is not true of any high trek.

All three, and all of them work. Mains electricity reaches the whole circuit, charging costs two to three dollars a device, and the wifi at Ghorepani and Ghandruk is good enough for a video call home. Ncell and NTC cover almost the entire route; the forest between Deurali and Tadapani is the one thin patch.

At Ghorepani, the coldest bed on the trek, roughly minus six in December and January and a degree or two above freezing in April and October. The lower villages are mild all season, and in April you will walk in a shirt. Bedrooms are not heated anywhere, which is what the sleeping bag we give you is for.

The Annapurna Conservation Area permit at NPR 3,000, about $22, issued by the National Trust for Nature Conservation, plus a TIMS card at NPR 2,000, about $15. Both are inside the price and we arrange them against your passport. TIMS enforcement has become inconsistent on this loop, but we buy it rather than leave you arguing at a checkpost.

A hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars, changed into small rupee notes in Pokhara, covering showers, charging, drinks, snacks and your tips. There are cash machines at Ghorepani and Ghandruk and they are not reliable, so assume you are carrying everything you intend to spend.

A week is comfortable for most of the year. For the middle two weeks of October, give us three weeks or so, because Ghorepani genuinely fills up and we want to hold beds rather than hope. Outside the peak we have started people on this trail at two days' notice.

Yes, and most parties do something. Add a second night at Ghandruk to walk up to the Australian Camp viewpoint, finish at Jhinu for the hot springs, walk out over Landruk instead of Kimche, or split day 6 in two if your knees would rather. From a party of five a private trek on your own dates costs no more than joining a group.

Bring poles and use them on the way down. Almost nobody has trouble on the climb to Ghorepani, and a good number of people arrive at Ghandruk with sore knees they did not need to have. After that, go to bed early at Ghorepani and leave ten minutes before the lodge does.