The Annapurna Circuit is one of the most renowned trekking circuits, not only in Nepal, but the world. It has only recently been approached by bicycle. The circuit or APC as it is commonly referred, is 230km (about 145 miles), rising from near sea level to an altitude of 5,416m (17,769 ft) over Thorang La, and touching the edge of the Tibetan plateau. Most trekkers approach the route counter – clockwise. This makes the daily altitude gain more gradual, and the crossing of Thorang La easier and safer, lessoning the chances for HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) and HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema). The mountain scenery includes the Annapurna Massif (Annapurna I – IV Annapurna Massif includes 1 peak over 8,000m, 13 peaks over 7,000m, and 16 more over 6,000m), Dhaulagiri (8,167m / 26,796 ft), Machapuchare (6,993m / 22,942 ft), Manaslu (8,163m / 26,781 ft), Gangapurna (7,455m / 24,459 ft) and Tilicho Peak (7,134m / 23,406 ft). Welcome to the Himalayas. There is plenty of high altitude representation here. The peaks will put a kink in your neck, a permanent smile on your face, and take your breath away, literally.

 

11/1 day 1. Pokhara to Tatopani

Vomit bags, mud, stream crossings, chalk when combined with stream crossings creates paste, and a broken pannier. Not a bad day 1. Early on in the circuit there is a road that was added less than 10 years ago. It allows people to take a bus higher up if they want to shorten the trek. Due to its winding trajectory, many people on the bus get sick and thus there is a plethora of exploded vomit bags having been jettisoned out bus windows, littering the road. For this and other reasons, most purists opt out of the bus and begin trekking immediately.

The term road should be taken with a grain of salt…or chalk, as it is here. Gone is the pavement. There is relentless pounding, twisting, and climbing.  In some places there is lushness with countless stream crossings, balanced against a dirt that is so fine that it resembles chalk. Mix them both together and you get paste. It is easy to see how impassable the road would be during monsoon season.  It is about 55 miles from Pokhara to Beni, the start of the circuit. I was so excited to be out of the city, in the mountains, and on dirt, that I pushed on past the first stopping point of Beni, and landed in Tatopani (translation: Hot Water). After 9 hours and 70 miles, I think that was a good intro. I checked into a guest house, then walked down the stone steps to the renowned hot springs of Tatopani for a much needed soak. By 8pm I was unconscious, but anxious to see what day 2 had to show.

 

11/2 day 2. Tatopani to Gasa

Nine miles.  Four hours.  Yeah…it’s pretty easy math. Today was war. It was 50/50 push vs ride.   Yesterday, the road was rough. Today it dissolved into absurdity. It looks like someone chucked a bunch of dynamite into the hillside, scraped off the rubble with a bull dozer, then turned on the faucet and let a continuous flow of water slowly erode away the remaining debris. Humidity is gone. Nearing 2pm, I was feeling the weight of the day’s effort finally supplanting my enthusiasm. The check engine lights were blinking so I stopped for lunch in Gasa, where unbeknownst to me, I met the Godfather of Nepal mountain biking. His name is Sonam Gurang and he is 62 years young. I have talked to several people and he is known to have pioneered mountain biking in Nepal some 30 years ago.  He’s a jovial guy with the spirit and enthusiasm for cycling that easily matches my own. He has done every tour in Nepal and India and this week he is guiding a German couple in their mid 50’s. They are coming down as I’m going up (of course). He told me that he laughed when he saw me coming up the road.  “Very hard.  Leave at 4am. 6 hours to top of Thorang La. Too long. Too much altitude.” Great…so now not only am I am going the opposite direction of every trekker, but also counter to what the Godfather says. Did I really not think this through?

Fortunately, the place we are eating at is his usual lunch spot, so at least I got that right. The food is wonderful (yes, its possible to mess up dal bhat).  The woman who runs the hotel is kind, so this makes for a good stopping point for the day. At lunch I ordered 3 full dal bhat.  I very nearly ate them out of their stock. Apparently I was putting on an eating exhibition. Typical American. The woman who was cooking could not believe my appetite and just laughed each time I ordered more. That’s the beauty of dal bhat…they will just keep bringing you more until you tell them to stop.  Even though today was an absolute beat down, I’m at peace, once again in the mountains. There is stillness. Calm. Anticipation as each day that I will climb higher. The nights are getting colder.  The sun dipped below the peaks at 330pm and the temperature dropped precipitously. I’m only at 7k feet but I can feel the change.  The winds come in at 1pm each day. It’s like clockwork I’m told. By 4pm, I was laying in bed in my sleeping bag content to bathe in the comfort and stillness that being in this place has gifted to me. I got up at 630pm for another round of dal bhat, only to quickly retreat to the warmth of my down bag. I just want to go to sleep and wake up to see those peaks punching a hole in the cobalt blue sky. The window above my bed faces the exact path that I will embark on tomorrow.  I went to sleep at 8pm, with those jagged snow capped peaks, sleeping for now, but waiting to greet me as I embark once again to their beckoning gaze.

 

11/3. Day 3. Ghasa to Marpha. 

After yesterday’s war, today was a surprisingly easy ride, albeit dusty. I say “surprisingly easy” because I would hate to see anything nearing its equal. The topo map made it look like the first section would be a continuation of the prior day. After a few benign rises, the road leveled off and I cruised all the way to Marpha, aided by the standard 1pm tail wind for the last hour.  In many places, there is a trekking path that mostly parallels the road. However, I have been warned not to veer from the road because the alternative trekking paths are typically laden with extended rock step sections, not ideal for a 60lb bicycle. There are still buses, even on this road, and I was getting tired of being washed in their diesel and dust cocktail. I went for it. I crossed my first suspension bridge, over the river. The bridges are made of heavy gauge cabling but it still bounced and swayed precariously the moment I entered, spanning several hundred feet. It is barely wide enough for my handle bars and the height on the sides slightly above my waist…which is just high enough to flip me over head first, 200 feet feet below, if I caught one of my bars on the cable (which would not be difficult to do). On the other side of the river, I discovered some loamy single track, buried in the dense forest, away from buses and dust.  It flowed freely along the river, winding its way through the trees. How silly I was for spending all that time jousting with the buses? Thirty minutes later it spiked up into a series of tight switchbacks, nearly too steep to trek, and surely too steep to ride. And…now I understood why all the guides had told me stick to road (which is further making me nervous about going this direction for the circuit).  I had to double back 10 minutes but found a place to cross the 1/2 km wide mostly dried up section of river. I continued the next hour to Marpha where I found a guest house, more dal bhat and retired to my sleeping bag per my usual 7pm. Maybe I learned a lesson today, but it’s an adventure and what’s an adventure if you just stick to the guide book?

 

11/4 day 4. Marpha to Muktinath (High Camp)

I didn’t plan to go this far and it might prove to be a mistake. HAPE and HACE are no joke. HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) is a form of non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs). HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema) is a medical condition in which the brain swells with fluid. Both of these can be fatal and can occur in otherwise healthy mountaineers at altitudes usually above 2,500 meters (8,200 ft). I am officially in that danger zone. They are typically brought on by ascending too high, too fast. This is the primary reason why all guides and guide books suggest going the opposite direction that I am traveling. The difference being that the high camp coming counter clockwise is at 4,800m (15,748ft) before summiting Thorang La at 5,416m (17,769 ft). However, in the direction that I’m traveling, Muktinath sits at only 4,000m (13,123 ft), making the summit day a much longer and greater ascent, whereby exposing oneself to HAPE or HACE. The trick is to either go slower and spend a few extra days as high as possible (in Muktinath), or get up and over quickly, which is what I’m planning to do.

Muktinath is the end of the road. From here, it is up and over Thorang La…if only it were that easy. I was buzzed by an endless barrage of buses, SUVs, and motos today.  Everyone wanting to get here. From the starting point of Marpha this morning, the road continued to rise gradually, but felt flat based on the prior days’ efforts. As a result I arrived here much earlier and easier than I planned. Originally my stopping point was supposed to be Kagbeny, however, reaching there by 9am, I decided to see how far I could get by noon, which turned out to be Muktinath. There are plenty of nice hotels offering warm showers to trekkers descending Thorang La. Physically, I felt great and I knew that I was setting up for a battle of epic folklore tomorrow. I am told to plan for 6 hours of literally pushing, pulling, and dragging my bike to the top. It is far too steep, too loose, and even when both of those elements recede, the lack of oxygen makes it nearly impossible to pedal at that altitude.

I confirmed with several people coming down the pass, that even though every map and guidebook claims there is no lodging above Muktinath, there actually are 4 very basic guest houses.  With that confirmation, I pressed on. The lodging sits at 4200m which should ideally let me sleep a bit higher but more importantly cut upwards of 90 minutes off tomorrow’s slug fest. Within the first 10 minutes, I got a very sour taste of what the next day would look like.  Over those 90 minutes I was able to gain only another 200m (656 ft), straight up the trekking path. No doubt…there would be zero pedaling. I collapsed at the first guest house, aptly named Paradise Hotel. All 4 of the hotels were empty which makes sense. Anyone coming over the pass would continue the next 45 minutes to Muktinath and stay in a cush hotel, with wifi and a hot shower. Every guide book tells you not to go the direction that I am, and as a result none even list any available lodging. It’s curious why (or how) these 4 places actually exist.

From the outside, the Paradise Hotel looks like a quaint, white washed villa, the kind you might find in the Alps. It’s all a façade. On the inside it is as basic as can be. My room looks like a concrete prison cell. My bed is a piece of foam draped over a wooden structure. The dirt floor is covered with a blue tarp and the hallway is dimly lit with 1 hanging bulb that sways when the winds whip up. The woman who runs it appears to be in her 40’s and is the kindest person ever. Excited to have a guest, she makes me a heaping portion of dal bhat and even gets me a bucket of solar heated water, coming straight from the glacier, for a needed shower. The views from the Paradise Hotel are spectacular, overlooking the valley that I slogged up and framed in by surrounding peaks that will hopefully be scaled tomorrow. I could have had a fancy room in town but this just seems more like me. Tomorrow, I’ll see if the trade off was worth it. I’m in bed at 6pm after my dal bhat. By 7pm it is dark and at nearly 14k ft, that means its cold. I’ve been told to get water at night because all pipes freeze overnight. With nothing else to do, I’m in my sleeping bag and asleep by 730pm with the plan to wake by 530am and battling by 6am.