There is always concern of too much snow covering the pass at any time of year which can force hikers to turn around, luckily as we settled down for dinner (the night before our pass day) the flakes started to fall.  Not worrying about it too much, as it did not seem like any of it was sticking, we figured that we would be ok for our hike the next day.  We woke up to a bit of a winter wonderland.  A blanket of snow covered everything and we debated hanging around another day.  However, it was a beautiful day, the sun was coming up, and the blanket was not very thick, so we decided to push on.

Some people wanting to get a jump on the pass, as it was supposed to take between four and six hours to get over, started off early leaving Thorong Pedi at 500am.  We got going at a much more respectable time of 630am.  The way up was grueling.  I am not sure if there has been anything more strenuous that I have ever done.  Climbing 1000m (3048ft) at around 5000m of altitude is extremely tough.  You have a hard time catching your breath and feel a little dizzy as you go. As you continue climbing the stops get more frequent and the time needed to rest gets longer. Just imagine walking 10 steps uphill and getting completely out of breath, needing a few minutes to recover to get the heart beat down.  Rosanna and I were feeling good though, because each time we stopped we were able to breath close to normal again after a bit.  We pushed on though and made the summit after a couple of false alarms looking like we were almost there.

At the top you kind of feel like you are underwater.  You move around slowly and you have this slight constant pressure on your head.  Spending the night at Thorong Pedi kind of felt like having a small hangover, climbing up to the Thorong La pass turned a slight hangover into more of an after wedding night doosy. We stayed at the pass just long enough to get our water bottles filled, have some ridiculously expensive snacks and noodle soup, and get our picture taken. The clouds were moving in and our day was only half over, we now had to climb down 1700m to the village of Muktinath as a finale, so we kept going after a short period of time arriving in Muktinath after another four hours of hiking.  It felt great having completed the hardest day of the trip, without any major problems.

The remainder of the trek kind of flew by. There wasn’t a day that passed where we weren’t in awe by the stunning landscape. We started in high alpine scenery and descended down gaining temperature and vegetation as we went.  We passed ancient settlements that were once apart of long trade routes to Tibet and the Far East.  The allure of walking along a solely trekking and donkey train path was a little broken on the western side of the trek as we sometimes followed a jeep track and were occasionally passed by jeeps and motorcycles.  This is development, just makes your feet hurt a little more when you see these tantalizing motorized rides passing you by.  However, we pushed on keeping up our 7 hour day routine.  As we dropped altitude we returned to some of the scenery that we saw when we first started.  We walked through terraced fields, towns with beautiful stupas and prayer wheel entryways, subtropical rainforest and gigantic rhododendron forests that were in full bloom. We enjoyed the laid back, no hassle mentality of the Nepalese in the places where we stayed.

After 6 days straight of walking we made it to the village of Tatopani, which literally means hot water.  Dustin take some notes here.  The village has some natural hot springs close to the river and we went down to take advantage.  Our legs and feet were very thankful for the dip.  The temperature was perfect and the setup was very nice.  It is a bit of a sacred spot and some Nepali Hindu holy men looked like they had been there for years.  The hot spring revilitalized us for the last two days of our trek that would take us climbing elevation (up to 3200m) and then dropping again (down to 1100m).

All along the way we saw some of the same trekkers.  There were not as many crazy people like us who were trying to finish the circuit as quickly, but there were a few and it was nice to see some familiar faces as we neared the end of journey.

The last day of our trek we climbed up to a place called Poonhill, above the village of Ghorepani. The hill was covered with rhododendron tress and offered a spectacular panoramic view of Annapurna South, Annapurna 1, Dhaulagiri (the seventh highest mountain in the world 8,167m 26,795ft) and many others.

After the view point and a long day of walking we made it to a paved road and a bus back to Pokhara for a well deserved shower and the cleaning of clothes.  The trip was exhilarating, and the scenery was amazing. Highly recommended for anyone thinking about it. We miss it already.