Nepal Trek

Nepal March/April 2023

Mani wall on Manaslu Circuit

Rani has been fascinated by Everest in particular and the Himalayas in general for decades. She meant to go trekking there long ago but other adventures and life got in the way. My brother, Mike, has visited Nepal several times and has been pushing us both to do a trek while we are still young enough to pull it off and enjoy it. He warned us that there has been a lot of development since he first started trekking in the early 90's. In particular there are now roads in places where there used to be mountain tracks. These roads are a boon for the villagers who are now connected with the rest of the country via buses and high clearance vehicles. However, they have transformed the areas through which they pass. Typically they have been built on top of the older foot and mule trails.

Waiting for a lunch hand out

The most popular options for trekking in Nepal are Everest base camp in the Khumbu region and the Annapurna circuit - a route to the west of Everest that goes around the Annapurna range. Because of the popularity of these two treks and the fact that roads have replaced much of the trail around Annapurna, we did not consider these options, but instead looked for areas that would be less traveled and into which few roads had been cut.

Stupa near Nar Village

Why Manaslu?

We initially planned to visit the Annapurna Sanctuary. This would allow us to see forests of Rhododendron trees that should be in their spring bloom. We decided against this, because we felt it would be too short a trek and we wanted to experience greater diversity. After looking through the treks offered by Nepalese trekking companies, we settled on a circuit of mount Manaslu, which is the eighth highest mountain in Nepal and one of the 8000 meter mountains. This trek can be done as a two week circuit that begins and ends in the same place and is typically accessed by Jeep or bus from Kathmandu. It can also be combined with other treks into more remote valleys, which is what we decided to do. 

Early light on the mountains that enclose Larke Pass

The company we selected, Wilderness Excursions, offered a Manaslu trek combined with a week in the Nar and Phu valleys. This was a 25 day excursion, including 2 days to get there and back. We had them add a 6 day side trek into the Tibetan-flavoured Tsum Valley, which is accessed as a side trip near the beginning the Manaslu circuit. These additional treks would take us far to the west of our starting point and we would finish on a portion of the Annapurna circuit and drive and fly back to Kathmandu from there. It turned out that we bit off a bit more than was probably wise, with 28 days of walking between 5 and 9 hours each day. We added in 2 days in Pokhara at the end to relax, but in retrospect, two to three weeks of walking would have been plenty. A few additional rest days would also have made the trip a lot more relaxed!

Preparations

We arranged to hire a guide and porter through Wilderness Excursions, which meant that we would not need to carry large packs. The porter would carry about 10 kgs for each of us. The guide would also take care of arranging hotels and on behalf the agency would pay for accommodations and food for us all. Using an agency appears to be mandatory for the areas that require permits because only agencies can obtain the permits. Ideally we would have hired a guide and porter directly, if it had been feasible, because this would put more money into the hands of the people who are actually doing the work.

Boats on lake at Pokhara

We settled on packs of 30 and 35 liters, which would be large enough to carry bulky warm weather gear, snacks, and water as well as camera equipment. These weighed between 8 and 10 kilos, depending on the weather and who was carrying the heavy full frame SLR camera equipment.

Monastery entrance gate in Tsum Valley

We had heard that the food available at the tea houses can be a bit monotonous and we might go hungry in between meals, so we prepared large quantities of snack food including home made energy bars, nuts, dates, Indian sweets, and chocolate. This proved to be overkill as the tea houses served a large variety of meals and always in large helpings. Our poor porter ended up carrying much of these snacks for far longer than he should have and we gave away quite a few sweet items as we went along.

On the way to Larke Pass

The trekking agency provided a recommended gear list. This included 4 each of various clothing items. In retrospect next time we would bring about half this amount because we had selected long wearing items made of merino wool that lasted a few days without needing a wash. We were able to wash clothes at some of the tea houses and they usually dried overnight. Washing lines were available or you could drape them over a balcony railing to dry.

Kathmandu marigold sellers

Items that proved to be valuable were washing powder to clean clothes, head lamps for use when the power was turned off or unavailable in the tea houses, our e-readers, good hiking boots, toilet paper, and sleeping bag liners. The tea houses all provided at least one light quilt but we used our down filled sleeping bags almost every night. In some colder places a second quilt could often be obtained if required. Good, broken-in boots were invaluable and neither of us had blisters in 28 days of walking. 

Mount Manaslu is over 8000 meters

Other items we needed in a few places were gaters to keep snow out of the boots on the passes and at Manaslu base camp as well as strap on microspikes (mini-crampons), which were very helpful on the two passes we crossed. We were able to buy the gaters and crampons in Kathmandu and also saw them for sale in Pokhara and Manang. Some of the small villages, in which the tea houses are located had stores where we were able to buy snacks, handcrafts, and trekking necessaries such as toilet paper. These come at a marked up price, of course, because of the difficulty of getting them there via mule, porter, or jeep. Another good thing to bring is a few items to repair broken gear, including super glue, and duct tape. We used both to repair the hiking pole we bought in Kathmandu when the handle popped off.

Pilgrims pass under the water spouts at Muktinath

Getting There

Rani flew via New Delhi India, because she was visiting family there for a few weeks before the trek. The problem with this option is that you need an Indian tourist visa to do this from Vancouver because the flight arrives in New Delhi late at night and the next flight to Kathmandu is the next day. Obtaining a tourist visa to India took about 2 months and an in person visit to Surrey, so I would not recommend this route unless you plan to visit India for more than an evening. Chris flew to Kathmandu from Vancouver via Singapore with Singapore Airlines, which proved to be a good way to go. When you arrive in Kathmandu, you have to pay for a tourist visa. The regular one is for 30 days and costs 50 US dollars (they accept Canadian dollars too, but oddly do not accept Nepalese rupees). We paid for the 90 days visa, which is $150 US dollars. We could have obtained a 30 day visa and then extended this to 45 days, which was a little longer than our total stay but this would have required a separate visit to a consular office and a probably a couple more hours of bureaucracy. 

Niece of a tea house owner in Phu village won Rani's heart

Please check out our Youtube slide show for a full set of pictures with some labels in roughly chronological order. Video is available in HD but you may have to explicitly set this when you play it using the Settings icon.