Wilderless: Trekking The Annapurna Circuit

The APC is neither Western nor Coastal nor your standard Remote Wilderness “Adventure”, but I couldn't find the blog for the Eastern Landlocked Trekkers Collective, so I'm publishing the trip report here.

Stats At A Glance*

Days trekking: 11

Kilometres trekked:155

Elevation gain/loss: 9,000 (Is that right?? See *)

Highest point: Thorung La Pass, 5416 m

Average daily spend (food+accommodation): $15

Map (route from right to left):

Map provided by maps.me.  If you do not already have this app, download it immediately.

TBH I'm not sure if this style of of trip would float the boats of many WCACers, lovers of the Pure-Wild-Leave-No-Trace adventures afforded by the vast expanses of the west coast.  But below I've outlined the types of people for whom Tea House Trekking (THT) is and is not well-suited.

People Who Should Avoid THT:

1. Badasses.  THT is not an extreme sport. There are virtually no threats to personal safety on route and the lauded “dangers” discussed in books and among NorthFace-clad trekking pole holders in Kathmandu would likely inspire eye rolls from WCACers. You are never more than four hours away from a hot meal and a bed.  Other than a few nights of altitude-induced insomnia, the only other potential discomforts (cold showers, no electricity, etc) are zero-to-few degrees removed from First World Problems.

2. Lone Wolves.**  If you’re trekking solo, the question you will be asked by 8/10 Nepali people is not “Where are you from?” or “Room for one?” or “Do you have a guide?” but “You have no friends?” Most people trek with local guides or in groups.  The quality of a WC adventure is usually measured in its remoteness from civilisation.  But in THT, you’re lucky to go two hours without seeing another person, and there are sections near the main hubs (trail head, Thorung base camp) where the trail feels like a theme park.  

This was one of the cozier rooms I stayed in, though all houses have beds, pillows and usually blankets.  Most under 3km even have dodgy wifi.

I trekked mostly solo, but met a crew of merry French/Slovenian/Chinese at Thorung La pass. Not pictured: the other French guys smoking cigarettes.

People Who Might Like THT:

1. Those Who Suck At Planning. If you've booked the plane ticket and bought/bummed the guidebook (mine’s up for grabs!), you can plan the whole trek on the flight to Kathmandu. You'll need one day in town to get the required permits (ACAP and TIMS, about $60 total) and any gear you may need knockoff versions of, but then you can head straight for the hills.

2. Speed Demons.  Due to the facts that A) you are not carrying food or shelter, B) obvious waymarks rid need for constant map checking, and C) most of the trail aims to accommodate Normies, there is a decent amount of ground that can be covered at a Hog, or even a Jun! Beyond the thrill of stretching the legs and feeling the mountain wind in your face, you are rewarded with the smug pride of absolutely smashing the estimated travel times on the signs and guidebooks.

3. History Buffs. The ACP is basically a high elevation museum, with each exhibit 5-10 kilometres apart. The entire route is dotted with stupas (shrines, sort of), mani walls (engraved stones), prayer wheels, Buddhist and Hindu gompas (monasteries), and pagodas (temples), some dating back to the 4th century BCE.  Nepal is a bottomless well of fascinating (and confusing) religions, languages, gods, festivals and customs -- plenty to keep the brain occupied for several hours a day on the trail!

Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheels. Walk on the left side, spinning each one clockwise with your right hand. The mantra “om mani padme hum” inscribed means “hail to the jewel in the lotus”

Now that you’ve determined whether or not THT is for you, here are some fun facts and photos about the ACP:   

Landscapes

• Nepal is home to 10 of the 14 highest peaks in the world (64% of Nepal is mountainous)
• The Indo-Australian plate on which it sits is still actively seismic (as seen in April 2015) and sliding at 27mm per year
• It's flipping hard to sleep over 3km of elevation (as also observed by Kelsey on Mt Whitney)

Kicho Tso (Ice Lake), 4620m, view of Annapurna Peak, 8091m

Kali Gandaki river and Dhaulagiri Peak, 8167m (under the far clouds)

Food: The Abridged Version (I could go on all day)

• Daal baht: rice served with lentil soup, curried vegetables or potatoes and spicy pickle, served for every meal and eaten with hands
• Seabuckthorn juice: made from the berries of a prickly shrub, with a vitamin content said to be higher than any other fruit or vegetable.  Used in Chinese medicine since the Tang Dynasty
• Yak cheese: salty, not great. Also a misnomer! Should be “nak cheese” as yaks are male.
• Apple Pie (a Thing on the APC.)
• Milk Tea (like Chai tea but somehow yummier)

People

The human element forms part of the landscape of the ACP, and is (in my opinion) just as striking.  Perhaps it's crass to call people “scenery”, but the reality is there is little opportunity to interact with locals on a much deeper level than observation as a trekker -- unless you learn Nepali and budget a few months (years?) to partially assimilate.

Some encounters are weird -- like when a gang of small children surrounded me with a rope and started chanting “Give me money!”-- but most, while brief, are really rewarding (a wee story about one such encounter here).  

* It should be noted that, as I was travelling without my Personal Stats Keeper, these numbers are rough estimations, based on poor recollection and potentially completely inaccurate.
**Bear in mind that even the Lonest of Wolves might occasionally enjoy playing cards with a few trail mates to pass the hours in the chilly evenings before bed.

For the full photo dump, see here.

An Ísland of Adjectives and 'The British Fell Relays'

An Ísland of Adjectives

A chance encounter --- facilitated by lack of enthusiasm to pick up two smelly hikers dancing to the Beach Boys at the side of the road (but that’s another story) --- at a restaurant1 in a tiny village in the alps led to KW and I to consider a trip to Iceland. An american couple we dined with had just used the ‘free stopover’ service offered by Icelandair on transatlantic flights2 and waxed lyrical about the place.

It seemed that everyone we spoke to had been to Iceland --- who knew?! --- and we quickly noticed a pattern:

‘Iceland is a beautiful, challenging place’

‘Iceland is an interesting place’

‘Iceland is beautiful and intriguing’

‘Iceland is a shit and boring place’3

‘Iceland is…’

Iceland is an adjective-inducing place.

Almost three months from that first encounter, we arrived --- twelve hours apart due to classic am/pm mix-up --- ready to find out for ourselves. This report is our small contribution to the country’s descriptors.

The windswept look in this photograph is 100% manufactured.

The weather forecast for our week was simply horrendous --- locals claimed that Hurricane Matt had something to do with it, but we aren’t convinced. But, all things considered, we managed to make the most of our mostly soggy sojourn. Without going into excruciating detail, we’ve compiled a brief list of Do and Don't Icelandic experiences and a fun game of guess who was responsible for what idiotic act.  

Do’s:

• All the saunas/hot springs/thermal baths/pools. (Except Blue Lagoon which everyone told us is shitty and crowded.) We recommend: Laugarvatn Fontana, particularly if you get mistaken for tour group members and get in for free, Grindavik swimming pool, and Selfoss swimming pool. You get hot, then you get cold. Repeat. Adjective: Invigorating.
• Westmann Islands. Well and truly worth the 3 hour or 30 minute ferry from the south coast (weather dependant source port), The main island’s north side has 4 hills for the conquering (some volcanic, one still hot, one with ladders and cool sheep). The south side of the island is the self-proclaimed windiest point in Europe and the town includes what may be The Cutest Spectacle On Earth in September. If you go, we know someone (known locally as The Puffin Lady) who can host you for free. Adjective: Magical.

Blue skies and wooly sheep

Teeny tiny house on the cliffs

Every evening, a man lights candles on ladder+sheep mountain.

• Eat all the Icelandic bread you can: preferably with Pear and Fig Jam. Adjective: Tasty.

And don't forget to leave space for the cinnamon swirl pastries

• Car camp. As in literally camp in your car. If you rent a 4x4 (which you probably will), you're going to want to get as much bang as possible from that buck. Even with only one sleeping pad between two people, it's surprisingly cosy, even on the stormiest of nights. Important note: if you park in Thingvellir, you may receive a wake up call in the form of a threat to be bulldozed by local law enforcement. Adjective: Resourcefulness-Inducing
• Running (for a bit) on lava fields along the continental divide (or anywhere, really). You can almost enter a trance state, engulfed by whipping winds and rains, bounding over seemingly infinite lumpy moss, which springs under foot one step and threatens to snap an ankle the next. Adjective: Weird.
• Cook a meal for yourself in a farm stay, preferably one that includes a hot tub. Discover that the cost of one potato and one sweet potato is greater than almost an entire fish from the local Físka. Best enjoyed with a creepy bottle of wine. Adjective: Contradictory.

It was as dillicious as it looks

Creepy wine man, tell me what you are thinking...

Don’ts:

• Tour the Geothermal Bakery at Laugarvatn. The bread samples are delicious but you could easily swipe a few slices from the table and skip the “experience” -- a $15 10 minute walk behind a sullen teenager with a shovel to a hole in the sand with a pot buried in it. Complete with a busload of photo-takers who form a cloistered queue around the samples at the end. Adjective: Awkward.
• Sulphur hill (AKA Krisuvik). Unless you're into walking along roped paths with other waterproofed Guidebook-readers, through random blasts of sulphur fumes, to a “peak”/lump with five feet of visibility, you're safe to skip this spot. Adjective: Smelly.

Our verdict: Iceland is an Invigorating, Magical, Weird, Contradictory, Awkward, Smelly, Tasty, Resourcefulness-Inducing place.

And just for fun, here's a game of Who Done It (Answers below4):

1. Suggested poaching an egg in thermal boiling water
2. Puked on the ferry. And in a car park just as a tour bus emptied its parade of passengers.
3. Took the car on a 45 minute detour, while using Google Maps
4. Balls turned to raisins in the cold plunge pool.
5. Saw the Northern Lights.
6. Almost let 46,000 Icelandic Krona fly onto the highway in the “Let's See Who Can Handle Having The Windows Down” game
7. Attempted to downclimb a waterfall for the sake of an aesthetic ‘loop’ run rather than out’n’back while waiting on their better half
8. Had the best Michael Jackson smooth criminal lean?

British Fell Relays

The other part of our trip that might be of interest to WCAC members was one of --- in Iain’s opinion --- the highlights in the British ‘Fell5 Running’ scene: the Fell Relays (http://bfhrrc2016.westerlandsccc.co.uk/). The event, which moves to a different area of mountainous countryside of the UK every year, is a relay involving four legs and six runners. All the legs start and finish at a central event hub (rather than forming a continuous circuit like many in the US). This makes for some good spectating as you can see how the positions shift as the race progresses.

Roughly speaking the legs are as follows:

1. A short trail running leg that the winning runner should take ~30 minutes;
2. A longer fell run with pairs of runners (who have to stick together) taking around 75mins for the fastest pair;
3. A long navigation leg --- orienteering --- where a pair of runners get a map as they start and have to make their way from point to point as quickly as possible;
4. A shorter fell run involving the final runner; usually straight up and down a mountain.

More difficult the the race itself packing a small car with a carpet, 5 runners and a dog...

I was --- perhaps surprisingly for some WCAC members --- on the navigation leg for the men’s team of my old club, Carnethy. The fear-mongering that it was the trickiest course, both in terms of 'terrain' (bushwhacking factor) and navigational complexity in years was exaggerated, though the fact that 'clag' (cloud) was down to 300m meant that most of our run was at 10m visibility with eyes glued to compasses at all times, making avoiding all the 'tussocks' trickier than it would normally be. For anyone interested, here is the map that we were given on the startline:

Hit all the checkpoints (1-7) in order. What routes would you take? Answers on an email...

The dishevelled look was 90% authentic.

KW was on the prestigious Leg 2 in her first Scottish Fell race! In her words…

Some people like running. Some people like hills. Some people like both, but when push comes to shove, everyone's got a preference. The Brits love their hills by God, be that they have to finger claw up and butt sled down in gale force winds through knee deep mud.  I'm the former (the type who, when alone on a mountain, would forego a rocky summit in favour of a runnable trail), but I can enjoy a bonnie romp in the fells on occasion.

The going is tough and thrilling and “knackering” (British for soul-crushing), but the atmosphere is what makes the day. Marshals stand on fog blanketed hilltops all day, cheering on and handing out jelly sweets. Runners exchange encouragements and cheeky banter on the course. Afterwards, everyone shares detailed (Crime Report-level) descriptions of every inch of their route and every moment of their race drama over cups of tea and stovies (yummy Scottish stew), then dances the night away at a Ceilidh.

I don’t know if such an event could ever be run in some hills in California, but I’d encourage anyone who happens to be over in Scotland to give a hill race a try… :-)

Footnotes

1. Spoiler alert: unlike Iceland in October, the restaurant, Ptarmigan in Champex (one of my favourite birds, a reminder of the Cairngorms in Scotland), could not be more highly recommended. If you are nearby, GO!

2. To my dismay, Icelandair do not fly from SFO, but they do from Portland, FDK!

3. This was, in fact, the summary of a couple of local students that we chatted to in Reykjavik.

4. Katie, Iain, Katie, Katie. But Iain looked really cold too,No one. Ever,Iain,Iain, (see below)

5. The british term for running on rough, soggy mountains.

Mount Whitney

Californians do not take their altitude lightly 

Logistics:

• Whitney is 22 miles out and back trip. While it would make for a long day hike, I argue that it is well within reach to do in one day; parts of the trail are even runnable (adding an interesting challenge to this summit).

• To hike Mount Whitney, apply for a permit ~6 months in advance of your trip (sometime in April). Good news, you can list up to 15 choices, so it is likely you will get a date!

• Consider if you want to hike Whitney in a day, or hike halfway to Trail Camp, stay overnight, summit and hike out the next day.

• Wait 6 months.

• Book a campsite for the night prior to your Whitney ascent  - highly recommended to book Whitney Portal for the convenience and altitude acclimation.

Recap:

Prior to hiking Mount Whitney I read dozens of trip reports warning of the effects of altitude sickness, many suggesting additional days at altitude before attempting the colossal task of summiting the tallest peak in the lower 48. While much of this is sage advice, and thoroughly convinced me, it is important to keep in mind the majority of society is comprised of “Normies” (as FDK has dubbed normal folk who do not exercise regularly and sometimes in the extreme) for whom such advice might actually be relevant. I suggest attempting the next Whitney summit as a HOG (hike/jog).

E and I headed out to Whitney on Saturday morning with the goal of hitting the ranger station in Lone Pine before 4:30. We chose to make a loop out of the drive – first driving south through Bakersfield and making a giant U up to the Eastern Sierras. We made the ranger station in Lone Pine around 3pm with plenty of time to spare, checked in, and were informed the station was fresh out of “Wag Bags” (adorably-named plastic baggies you are expected to poop in for the duration of your time on Whitney Trail), but not to worry! The local outdoor store down the road had extras. So we hopped in the car, drove two miles and requested our poop bags for the weekend. To which the owner replied, “We’re fresh out”, without offering an alternative.  I balked, “where do you suggest I poop for the weekend?” she finally offered a “Smelly Bag”, a small, black plastic bag traditionally used to store weed. I requested two.

Non-traditional poop bag for the weekend

After our delightful experience in town we drove up the freshly paved road to Whitney Portal Campground. A word of caution here, Lone Pine is aptly named, in that there is not much to look at. Some dumpy piles of dirt comprise the Alabama Hills and some odd boulders makeup a rock climber’s playground in the desert. When you come to a campground you’ll likely think it is Whitney Portal, but quite the contrary you can drive another 1000+ feet in elevation to a second campground in an odd forest oasis above the desert scrub. This much nicer campground is the gem you want.

Picturesque little campground above the scrub

We opted for the overnight permit at Trail Camp, which allowed us a leisurely morning on Sunday. Six uphill miles were all that was on the agenda. The next morning we parked, read informative signs that set the proper expectation not to be rescued and fully disclosed the dangers of altitude sickness, and began our hike up. It was surprisingly hot, temperatures in the 70s, but the following weekend it snowed, proving weather in the mountains will always be highly unpredictable. All told it wasn’t bad, and without the packs it would have been even better. We made it to Trail Camp in a little over three hours.

Trail Camp - I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of people

Trail Camp is at the base is Whitney. You hike through what E calls a “gully” (not quite grand enough to be a gorge) between two mountains. Trail Camp is largely rock and a small lake, highly exposed, and windy, situated at 12,000 feet. More acclimation!

view of the "gully" on the hike up

Not bad scenery in the alpine country

The biggest take away from this for me was it is hard to sleep at 12,000 feet. Knowing we’d have a God-early start we hopped in the tent, listened to our creepy audio book, and planed to sleep by 8pm….come 4am I was still awake. E didn’t get much sleep either. Turns out it’s pretty damn hard to get comfortable at that elevation. I’d read a few dozen reports on this but didn’t really believe the Normies…I was totally wrong.

One of those peaks is Whitney

We started our ascent of Whitney the next morning at 4:45. The final summit of Whitney is a long series of switchbacks up the face, before dropping over a ridge, and summiting from the back.  Many reports complain about the switchbacks, perhaps tackling them in the dark helped, but again I didn’t find them too bad. Once we dropped over the ridge the path was more exposed and the sun was rising. I was fairly running to summit, giddy with the prospect of catching the sunrise. Whitney is surround by several peaks (given a picture of the range I still couldn’t identify Whitney properly), which create these pillars above the trail and excellent vantage points for the rising sun. I was in heaven, forgetting my vertigo and climbing between the pillars to catch the same sunrise a few dozen times.  Alas, we did not make it to the summit before the sun was fully up, but we still got to stand at the height of the lower 48! A pretty awesome experience.

The view of the mountains sitting behind Whitney is equally beautiful!

View from between the pillars looking out toward Trail Camp on the way to the summit

made it! 

The hike out was largely uneventful. I made E take most of my pack weight (FDK will recall the how brutal the Cascades were on my knees), so for me it wasn’t bad. Those last two miles I was about done with the trip and ready for a real bathroom and running water, but all told I was pleasantly surprised the trip didn’t prove to be the misery many trip reports promised.

We made it to the car and started the second half of our loop up to Yosemite. We drove through Bishop for a Dirty Hippie (Chai Latte with a shot of espresso) and some epic almond croissants from Schat’s, and then on to Lee Vining for a “fancy gas station” dinner of the best fish tacos I’ve ever had.

Sunset over Tenaya Lake before our quest to find a campground in Yosemite 

All told it was a lovely trip. I’ll apply for a permit in April if anyone cares to repeat this adventure next fall.