Annapurna Circuit Trek: The Route

I've read various estimates of the distance covered by the ACT, averaging out at approximately 200km over 16 days of walking. That may not sound like a lot (the two day hikes that I did as trek preparation were about 25km each), but the snag is that that only measures horizontal distance and the route is anything but horizontal. The trek starts at the fantastically named Bhule Bhule, at an altitude of 890m and nine days later we crossed a mountain pass, Thorung La, at 5416m. Just to put that in perspective, that's 606m higher than Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe. Our end point, Nayapul, is back down at 1000m, but, since there's no rest for the wicked, when you're almost down at that elevation, the trail makes you climb up (and then, of course, down) another 1700m.

Thorung La splits the trek in half. The first nine days of the trek we were so focussed on getting over the pass, and dealing with the altitude that that entails, that we forgot about the days to go on the other side. I'll call the way up the Manang side, after the biggest village of the region, and likewise the way down in the Jomsom side.

The two halves feel totally different. The Manang side is the far more rustic, with all the villages up to the top accessible only by walking. There's a tiny airport near Manang, but no roads (though some are now being built). On the Jomsom side, the road building project is far more advanced. There's also an airport. The villages are much wealthier and some of the tourist accommodation much fancier. The Annapurna Circuit can technically be walked in both directions but 99% of people do it in the direction that we did, as that makes crossing Thorung La pass much easier. People wanting shorter walks in the region walk the beginning of the circuit in the opposite direction, with the path getting more crowded the closer to the end of our trek we got.

I'll be saying much more about the scenery and villages we passed through on the diary style posts.