THE ROUTE TO ANNAPURNA

For the past two weeks in our exploration of the greatest mountains of the Himalayas, we’ve learned the route to Everest, Lhotse, and Cho Oyo, and that to Makalu and Kanchenjunga. This week we explore Manaslu and Annapurna.
We first note that the five “eight-thousanders” (over 8,000 meters high) we’ve been to so far are on Nepal’s borders, while Manaslu and Annapurna (along with Dhaulagiri, we’ll get there next week) are entirely within Nepal. (Shisha Pangma is in Chinese Tibet.) So we get to go completely around them.
We ended our experience with Kanchenjunga by returning to our home base in Kathmandu, the famed Yak & Yeti hotel. We’re up at dawn the next morning to board our ultra-high altitude AS 350 B3 Eurocopters and head north for Manaslu. Here’s the trekking route around the world's eighth highest mountain at 8,163 meters/26,781 feet.









