Days 231-232: Ascent

The trek I settled on doing was a 4 day (3 night) one that leads up to Poon Hill in the Annapurna region. I chose Poon Hill for a variety of reasons. It had been recommended to me by 3 or 4 other people who had done the trek, and it was supposed to have a good mix of mountains views, rural villages and a great range of scenery. At only 4 days long it is one of the shorter treks, which suited my timetable, and it doesn't go much about 3200m, so I wouldn't have to rent any heavier clothing or carry a sleeping bag. I went through an agency for my permits and guide, and while their package cost more than it would have to do it myself, it was much easier to set up and just had me being more confident since this was first real trek and I didn't really know what to expect.

I met my guide, Nirmal, in Pokhara early in the morning and we took a taxi out a good distance to Nayapul, which is the starting village for most of the treks in the area. Despite the post title, the first two days were hardly a pure climb. Much of the time we would follow the trails partway up the side of a hill, then come around the side and go down a bit. Overall though, we kept creeping up in elevation.

Things were pretty quiet most of the time, but we were hardly the only people on the trail. We met other trekkers along the way, and we seemed to keep running into the same groups over and over through the course of the trek, so that I came to know a few of the groups in particular quite well. In the afternoon of the first day, during a rest stop, we got talking to a group that consisted of another Canadian, her guide and porter who were doing the more ambitious 10 day trek to the Annapurna base camp. All of us got along well, and our paces matched up well, so we ended up trekking together until the end of the 3rd day when our paths split. Beyond the first couple hours there were no roads, so we also passed supplies heading up the mountain on pack horses/mules, and huge herds of sheep being slowly led down the mountain to be sold in the larger villages. The sheep herds created big logjams at some of the narrower places, and sometimes we'd have to just stand there for 15 minutes watching while they were encouraged through the section.

The climbs were my strongest sections, and there were a few points in the first couple days where during some long sections of stairs I'd have to slow down and wait for my guide to catch up. After a couple of these they somewhat jokingly nicknamed me Mountain Tiger. It wasn't long-lived though. The down sections, as I had feared, killed my legs, and later in the trek my endurance flagged somewhat, although we continued to make incredibly good time (at least going up) throughout the entire trip.

We spent the nights in tea houses, which were basically just spartan little guest houses specifically for trekkers grouped into little villages along the way. They provided small, unheated and uninsulated rooms and some manner of toilet. Many of them had showers as well, but they generally weren't very clean, or hot, and except in emergencies being dirty was preferable to being damp and freezing. The menus were pretty simple, and after being warned about some of the food by other trekkers I mostly stuck to the local staple Dal Bhat. Dal Bhat is a mixed platter that normally contains rice, dhal (a lentil soup/sauce), potatoes, and some sort of vegetable curry/chutney. It's cheap, and since they make lots of it for all the locals you know it's fresh and they'll give you extra portions if you want them.

By the end of the second day we were in Ghorepani, just below Poon Hill. The plan was to get up very early, climb the last couple hundred meters up to the hill and hope for clear weather to see the mountains at sunrise.