Annapurna
The Last Day to Annapurna Base Camp
A week of stone stairs and rhododendron forest ends in a snowbound gorge, and then the walls open into a ring of the highest peaks we have ever stood beneath.
- Location
- Annapurna Sanctuary, Nepal
- Coordinates
- 28°32′N 83°53′E
- Published
- Reading time
- 3 min read
The trail to Annapurna Base Camp is mostly stairs. Thousands of hand-laid stone steps climb out of the terraced valleys north of Pokhara, drop to a river, and climb again, and the village of Chhomrong seems to exist mainly to show you how many of them are still ahead.
For five days the path follows the Modi Khola gorge up through bamboo and rhododendron forest, tea house to tea house. On the sixth day the trees give out, the walls close in, and the snow begins.
Into the gorge
We left Deurali before first light. The gorge above it is narrow and high-walled, and in spring it holds old avalanche snow long after the villages below have turned green. Our guide set a pace that felt absurdly slow and turned out to be exactly right. At this altitude, everything that hurries is punished later.
Past Machapuchare Base Camp the valley widens, and the mountain the camp is named for rises above it. Machapuchare is held sacred and closed to climbers, and no one has officially stood on top. Watching its fishtail ridge catch the first light, it is easy to see why nobody argues.
You walk for a week to stand inside a ring of mountains. Then you forget to take a single photo.
The sanctuary
The last two hours run gently uphill across a snowfield, and then the walls of the Annapurna Sanctuary open all around you: Annapurna I, Annapurna South, Hiunchuli and Gangapurna ahead, Machapuchare behind. Base camp sits at 4,130 metres, a cluster of lodges on the edge of a glacial moraine, and the silence there is enormous. When the sun reaches the south face of Annapurna, people simply stop talking.
We stayed two nights instead of one. The second sunrise was better than the first.
Field notes
When to go: March to May for rhododendrons in bloom, or October and November for the clearest skies.
How long: Allow seven to eleven days from Pokhara, with time to go slowly above Deurali.
Permits and guides: You need an Annapurna Conservation Area permit, and since 2023 foreign trekkers in the region must walk with a licensed guide.
Safety: Ask about avalanche conditions between Deurali and base camp before you set out, especially in late winter and spring.
