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We departed early and were met by our guide, Ram, and driver. Heading north out of the city we were soon in the foothills and then climbing up a one lane semi-paved road to the trail head. |Our first day ended up being 16 miles of up and down mountain trails, into valley filled with small villages and farmland, and then repeating...we crossed over eight specific ridge lines and by the end of the day were exhausted.
This guy with hindu blessing on his forehead came out to greet us.
The trail map below outlines over 60 miles of interlocking trails. While we did not intend to cover any of the Annapurna segment, there were some aspects of it. The highest we got in the four days was about 12,000 feet. We ended our first day in a quiet village at a backpackers hotel. We were the only guests for the night and the cook was delightful as he visited out table over and over again to make sure all was perfect. The beds were rock hard and we didn't care.
Our second day we crossed over more ridge lines than on day one but only trekked for a bit over ten miles. This giant Buddha was on top of the first mountain. |It was closed as the trekking season does not officially start for a few more weeks, but the caretaker was so kind and let us in.
From there it was up and down again. The views from the trails were awesome.
Marijuana grows wild all over the hills, right on the edge of trails...and interestingly seems to be untouched.
We reached a small village just after midday and eight miles into the trek. There we saw a really lovely old stupa before heading down hill.
At mile ten we opted to call ahead to the resort for a ride up the last hill. There we found a beautiful mountain resort and once again were the only guests for two nights...and we were spoiled rotten. We woke each morning to a troupe of monkeys on the grounds, swinging from the trees, and peekingt into our windows.
We had spectacular views from our room, being the one right on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley below and the mountains in the distance.
On our free day we opted to visit a rare Buddhist village above the resort.
It had rained the night before and the trails were really muddy.
We woke to the clouds clearing and the mountain ranges starting to show.
Just before departed to begin our trek back to Kathmandu, the clouds had lifted all the way and this was what we saw from our balcony.
Everest with the zoom lens is on the left.
Our final trek was over flat land for about 4 miles to a nearby town where we were met by our private transport and taken back home.
This was a temple dating back to 500 AD. We spent a bit of time exploring the buildings and the riverside before heading back.
We covered about 40 miles of trekking in four days and had an awesome time.
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