Travel in Annapurna

Annapurna is a massif, not a town. On our Nepal trips it means the trekking days — five to eleven walking stages, depending on the route. Four of our six Nepal itineraries go in on foot; the other two look at it from the Pokhara side and never enter the conservation area. Every trip is private and guided, run on your own dates. There are no fixed departures.

Three of the four walk the Poon Hill route. Culture and Himalayan Hiking and Trekking Tour Through Nepal start at Nayapul at 1,070 m and run five stages — up the Modi and Bhurundi river valleys through bamboo forest and waterfalls to Tikhedhunga at 1,495 m or Ulleri at 2,050 m, then a steady climb to Ghorepani at 2,850 m, a pre-dawn start for sunrise on Poon Hill at 3,210 m, and down through Tadapani at 2,590 m and Ghandruk at 1,940 m to Nayapul again. Impressions of Nepal covers the same ground the other way round in six stages, from Kande at 1,700 m over the Australian Camp viewpoint at 2,200 m. Rhododendron and oak forest, terraced fields, suspension bridges, hill villages.

Majestic Himalayas is the long one, and the only route in the catalogue that reaches Annapurna Base Camp. Eleven stages: over Poon Hill like the others, with a stop at the Gurung Hill viewpoint at about 3,125 m, then north up the Modi Khola to Chomrong at 2,200 m, Dovan at 2,500 m, Deurali at 3,200 m and Machapuchare Base Camp at 3,700 m. Base Camp at 4,130 m is an afternoon climb from there — you go up for the light on the surrounding peaks and come back down to sleep at 3,700 m. Two things to know before committing. Conservation rules cap the beds available this high, so from Dovan onward several nights are in a shared room. And the last stretch up to Deurali is a rough track rather than a path after winter landslides.

Only Majestic Himalayas gives distances. Its stages run from about 5 km in four hours to 15 km in six, with 11 to 13 km over six or seven hours being typical, and one day that drops about 1,350 m. Impressions of Nepal lists 4 to 10 km a stage over five or six hours. The other two describe the same route without the numbers.

The World of Nepal and Temples, Shrines & Himalayas do not trek. They see the massif from Pokhara: Sarangkot at about 1,592 m at around 5 a.m., where Dhaulagiri and Annapurna come up in the first light, and the view from the Bindhyabasini Temple on its hill above town. Temples, Shrines & Himalayas adds the hour uphill to the Shanti Stupa at about 1,115 m, which faces the snow line in good weather.

No trip here walks the full Annapurna Circuit. Two of our itineraries name the circuit when describing Pokhara, and Pokhara genuinely is where people set off on it, but what we run is the Poon Hill loop and the route to Base Camp. Tell us if the circuit is what you are after. The four trekking trips start at EUR 1,575 for the eleven-day Trekking Tour Through Nepal and run to EUR 1,760 for the fourteen-day Culture and Himalayan Hiking.