Goddess of the harvests, Annapurna – the buildup

Kathmandu

The region

There are many interpretations of the name. It can imply “One who provides food”, “One who’s replete with food”. The locals there interpret it as “The Goddess of harvests” and there are many more. The name, as you might have guessed it already, is “Annapurna”. In this literature it  refers to the Himalayan mountain peak which has a height of 8091 m. However, when it comes to the section of the Himalayan range where this peak resides, the name covers a larger boundary. It refers to what they call as the “Annapurna Massif” or “Annapurna Himal”. The word Himal refers to sections or ranges of The Himalayas and they typically include many mountain peaks. For example, some of the Himals of Nepal Himalayas are Mahalangur Himal, Ganesh Himal, Mansiri Himal and others. The Mahalangur Himal stretches from the Nangpa La to the Arun river and includes the mountain peaks of Mt Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu and many others. The Mansiri Himal is the home of the famous peak of Mt Manaslu.

The Annapurna Himal (massif) lies in north-central Nepal and it is surrounded by Kali Gandaki gorge to its west (the world’s deepest river gorge that cuts as deep as 1 km), the Marsyangdi river to its north and east and the Pokhara valley to its south. The massif includes Annapurna I (or Annapurna Main, 8091 m) and many other peaks in the range of 7000 m and 6000 m. The other peaks are Annapurna II, Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Machhapuchchhre (Fish Tail, because of its resemblance to the tail of a fish from some angles), Gangapurna and many others. The massif and its surrounding areas are covered under the Annapurna Conservation Area Project. It is one of the first and largest of such projects in Nepal. This region has a varied landscape and has ample attractions for trekkers and travelers making it one of the (if not the) most visited regions of The Himalayas. One can say this even after considering the glamour and craze of the famed Everest region of Nepal.

Climbing history

In the climbing fraternity, the mountains of the Annapurna region are considered among the most dangerous in the world. Out of the fourteen peaks reaching 8000 m or above, Annapurna has one of the highest mortality rates. Till date, there have been only about 200 summit ascents to Annapurna Main (I) compared to thousands on Mt Everest during the same period. Particularly, climbing the south face of Annapurna Main is considered the most difficult of all the routes to the summit. The mountain also has the highest fatality to summit ratio (i.e. average number of deaths for a successful summit) of about 32%. Snow storms and avalanches are way too common on the mountain and account for most of the fatalities on its corridors.

Despite the challenges, Annapurna I was the first 8000 m peak to be climbed. On 3rd June, 1950, Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal from a French expedition, were the first to reach the summit. It remained the highest climbed summit till the first successful ascent of Mt Everest in 1953. Though, mountaineers attained higher non-summit points on The Himalayas even before that in the 1920s (mainly due to their attempts on Mt Everest). The south face was first climbed by Don Whillans and Dougal Haston in 1970. They were a part of a British expedition led by Chris Bonington. The year 1978 saw the American Women’s Himalayan expedition team reach the summit making them the first ever Americans to reach there. The first winter ascent was achieved by the Polish climbers Jerzy Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer in 1987. This was special on any mountain, especially Annapurna, considering its near vertical ice walls and relatively higher rates of avalanches. There have been 52 deaths during ascents and nine during descents. The ratio of 34 deaths per 100 safe returns is the highest among all the 8000 m peaks in the world. Out of the many climbers who perished on its flanks, one name strikes me the most, Anatoli Boukreev. He was the famous Russian guide from Scott Fischer’s guided Everest expedition that went to Mt Everest in the fatal spring of 1996. The expedition that saw its leaders and other clients perish on Mt Everest. Boukreev drew a lot of flak for not using supplemental Oxygen while guiding the clients on the summit day. Though he saved the lives of some of the clients single-handedly, but debates raged afterwards around whether he could have saved more, had he used supplemental Oxygen. Since that expedition, Boukreev made several successful summit attempts on Mt Everest, Mt Lhotse and many other 8000 m peaks till he thought of attempting Annapurna in the winters. In 1997, Boukreev, along with fellow Italian mountaineer, Simone Moro, started to climb the south face of Annapurna I. On December 25th, around noon, when they were fixing ropes on a high couloir, a huge ice cornice broke off from the Western wall of Annapurna and triggered an avalanche down the slopes. It knocked down Moro, but he somehow managed to stay above the avalanche and managed to dig himself out of the debris. But he could see no signs of Boukreev. After a fruitless search, Moro descended to the base camp and was evacuated to a Kathmandu hospital by a helicopter. Search attempts on camp 1 (the disaster site) could not commence due to bad weather and it was only by 3rd January, 1998, search parties could reach camp 1 which had an empty tent. That was the end to an illustrious mountaineering career of Boukreev that spanned just 10 years and saw him scale the summits of 11 mountain peaks of 8000 m or above, most of them, sans bottled Oxygen. Some of them, multiple times, via different routes.

Trekking

There are many trekking routes in and around the Annapurna Himal, but three stand out prominently. The Jomsom trail (that takes one to the Muktinath shrine), The Annapurna Sanctuary trail that takes one to the south base camp of Annapurna I and the Annapurna circuit trail that surrounds the Annapurna Himal itself. The last one takes you through varied landscapes and altitudes spanning lush green forests in the lower regions, the arid rain shadow areas of Annapurna in the lower and upper Mustang regions, finally taking one to the Muktinath shrine after crossing the Thorang La (5400 m) on its way. The region sees the highest influx of trekkers in the Nepal Himalayas (even overshadowing the famed Everest region). Trekkers have also had their share of the wrath of Annapurna and the worst disaster came in 2014 when 43 were killed and at least 170 injured when snow storms and avalanches in and around Annapurna hit the region hard.

The trip

My interest to the region got incited way back in 2014 when I saw some pictures of someone else who visited the region with his family. At that time, I haven’t even visited Nepal, not at least as a trekker (I went there as a 10-year-old child with my father, but that was only to Kathmandu). Since I saw the pictures, Nepal started to set in my minds. If I could trek in other parts of The Himalayas, why not Nepal? Talks started with my friends and the excitement infected them too. We debated about the best time to visit the region – spring or autumn. Each had its own charm. Spring offered the best views of the forests that were abundant with Rhododendrons, whereas autumn provided the best weather when clouds stayed clear off the mountains. At that time, all of us thought about taking our families along. So, apart from getting leaves from our respective offices, we also had to consider leaves from schools of our children. After a lot of discussion, the autumn of 2015 was chosen as the window. I got in touch with Tej Bahadur Gurung, the proprietor of Nepal Alternative Treks and shared a lot of communication discussing the itineraries, cost and many other aspects of the proposed visit. But nature had its own plans, which stuck hard in the form of a devastating earthquake in 2015 and Nepal went out of the tourist map, at least for the time. Towards the end of 2015, interest started to revive (primarily due to the information that was shared by Tej about the resumption of treks and travels in the Nepal Himalayas). However, by that time, my interest shifted to Everest (a detailed description of that travel can be found here). Once that was done successfully, it was only a matter of time that the Annapurna Sanctuary trekking (aka Annapurna Base Camp trekking or ABC) had to be undertaken. By this time, many of our friends, who initially were part of our discussions in 2014, moved out due to different reasons. Some others joined the bandwagon. The initial group now had five persons – me, Niladri Sekhar Guha, Dhananjoy De, Ranjan Ghosh and Shk Monowar Hossein. The first four were also part of the Everest Base Camp trek and the last person rued missing out on Everest after he saw our pictures from that trek. He joined us for Roopkund trek, which we did in 2017 and was determined to visit Annapurna. Head hunting started with the main aim to increase the numbers to keep the costs at a reasonable level. Each of us reached out to our friends and contacts to tap their interests. Parallel conversations ensued with Tej seeking price quotes for different group sizes. Initially, many showed their interests and at some point in time, the group size went up to 14. That made us ecstatic. But things changed as the time of our visit came closer. Me, Ranjan da and Niladri decided to take our children along. The decision was primarily driven by the fact that the trek involved going through much lesser heights than Everest and having company of other children would keep them engaged throughout the trek. Nildari’s kids had to pull out as exams came in their way. I purposely decided to hide that news from my daughter and preferred to keep her along. This was going to be a life time experience for her and if things went right, hopefully, she might develop an interest in the mountains. Tej Gurung also obliged us with a lesser price for children than the adults. The group size was now 12. Communications went on with Tej, so did the iterations about the itinerary. We chose to start on 17th October, 2018. Our friends from Kolkata would start on 15th and were to reach Kathmandu on the evening of 16th. Once we join them on 17th, the entire group was to go for a sight-seeing of the Nepalese capital (something which we could not do during Everest trekking because of our delay at Lukla – a description of that can be found here). On the 18th, we’d start off for Pokhara in a private vehicle. The trek was to start from Pokhara on 19th with a drive to Khumi (the farthest one could go with a vehicle on the route), followed by a 2-2.5 hour climb to Chomrong. Successive days would see us reach the places of Himalaya, MBC (Machhpuchhre base camp) and Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). The plan was such, that we were to spend a full moon night at ABC to have a shot at the moonlit night views of the Annapurna range. We also kept an extra reserve day at ABC (in case we missed any of the desired views due to weather or needed extra rest on the way). On our way down, we were to halt at Bamboo, Jhinu Danda and reach Pokhara on 26th October. The team was to disperse there with our friends from Kolkata would head towards Birganj, some to Sunauli border (to catch trains to Kolkata and Delhi respectively) and the rest to Kathmandu. A flight on 28th October would carry rest of us back to Delhi. All seemed well planned, but Ranjan da pointed out a flaw. The second day of the trek was to see us gain an altitude of more than a 1000 m. That could be a tough ask, especially with children. He suggested to split the climb with more halts. For the time being, we chose to ignore it, but we had to heed to this during our trek (something to be told later). As the trek loomed, some of the members got jittery and phased out. This created some problems with price negotiations as a lot of expenses on the trek are shared and with reduction in team members, cost per head goes up. After the reductions, the team size now stood at 10. In a way, this was good as we now had members who were fully committed and chances of late desertions were remote.

Finally, the day arrived and our friends started off from Kolkata on 15th by Mithila Express to head towards Raxaul, the town on the India-Nepal border. They reached Kathmandu on 16th evening. I went to sleep that day with goosebumps in my belly. The Nepal Himalayas were calling again.

Kathmandu