Day 11: Thorung Phedi to Muktinath

I hiked the Annapurna Circuit with Michelle from Full Time Explorer. She did a great write-up of our trek which she kindly let me borrow, so what you see below is Michelle's text and my photos. You can find her original article at Annapurna Circuit Itinerary.

We pre ordered our breakfast the night before which included honey porridge at 4:00am and two hard boiled eggs to go. After packing and getting dressed, we ended up starting the hike at 5:00am. The route to High Camp is steep and takes about an hour. There is only one hotel at High Camp, so we stopped there to have a hot tea and change our clothes (I was hot). We spent about a half hour there before heading back out.

The part right after high camp was my favorite. The sky was still somewhat clear of clouds and we could see several beautiful peaks to the right of the path that were breathtaking. The path from here to the pass varied from flat sections to short steep sections. Looking at it from afar, it looked like the easiest walk ever, but the altitude made us feel extremely out of breath. We all looked like we had been weighted down at the feet. After about 2 hours we reached Thorung La Pass which is a building with a bunch of prayer flags next to it. Unfortunately, clouds had rolled in, and it started to snow, so we couldn’t see any views.

After hugging everyone and eating some celebratory yak cheese, we began the very steep descent to Muktinath. It’s a 1700m (5,577 foot) descent which was rough on my knees and made me feel like an old grandma. The views were incredible, but it took all of us longer than we expected to get back down. We stopped at Chambar Bhu along the way and had a long lunch as our group all caught up with each other. We rested for about 2 hours, and then finished the gradual descent back down to Muktinath and arrived around 2:30pm.

The night before, we all decided to meet at the Bob Marley Hotel. When we arrived, we all celebrated with food, drinks, and a few games of pool. The atmosphere there is really nice with great music playing. The food was amazing, and I highly recommend the margherita pizza and apple pie. The hot showers were amazing, and my room was comfortable. The only downfall was that the WiFi didn’t work great. Otherwise, I probably would have stayed longer. A lot of people end their trek here and take a jeep or bus to Jomsom or Pokhara. We decided to continue on.