Every trekking season in Nepal, Ladakh and the Karakoram, people who are fit, experienced and sensible are carried down valleys or flown out by helicopter because they climbed too fast. Acute mountain sickness is not a sign of weakness, and it is not something you can train away at home. It is the body’s ordinary … Read more
For decades the Annapurna Circuit was the trek in Nepal, a three-week horseshoe around the massif that passed from rice terraces to a 5,416 m pass and back down through the deepest gorge on earth. Roads have since been pushed up both sides of the loop, and the circuit has become a trek with a … Read more
Bhutan is not a country you stumble into. Every visitor pays a daily fee, every trek is walked with a licensed guide and support crew, and the trails are quiet in a way that has become rare in the Himalaya. That quiet is the reward. On the two treks most people consider first, the Druk … Read more
Kamikochi is a valley at 1,500 m in the Hida range, the northern of the three ranges that together are called the Japan Alps. The Azusa River runs through it, so clear that trout are visible from the bank, and the peaks above it rise steeply to more than 3,000 m. Private cars have been … Read more
The teahouse is what makes trekking in Nepal different from almost anywhere else in the high mountains. On the main trails of the Everest, Annapurna, Langtang and Manaslu regions, a family-run lodge stands every hour or two along the path, which means you can walk for three weeks carrying nothing heavier than a day pack. … Read more
The Annapurna Sanctuary is a natural amphitheatre, a glacial basin about 4,000 m high enclosed almost completely by a ring of peaks. The only way in is a narrow gorge between Hiunchuli and Machapuchare, and the trail up that gorge ends at Annapurna Base Camp, 4,130 m, with the south face of Annapurna I, 8,091 … Read more
There is no other trek quite like the walk up the Baltoro Glacier to Concordia and K2 Base Camp. In about two weeks of walking from the last village, the trail passes beneath four of the fourteen peaks above 8,000 m and a dozen of the most dramatic granite towers on earth, and it does … Read more
Kyrgyzstan is a country of mountains. More than 90 percent of its territory lies above 1,500 m, and the Tian Shan, the “celestial mountains”, run through it from the Chinese border in the east to the Fergana Valley in the west. For trekkers, the range that has drawn the most attention is the Terskey Ala-Too, … Read more
Almost everything that reaches a Himalayan village above the roadhead arrives on a human back, and most trekkers who walk those valleys depend on the same backs to carry their duffel. The relationship between a visitor and the person carrying their kit is the most important one on the trail, and also the one most … Read more
