Like a lot of thruhikers around me, I’ve found myself worrying about the snow conditions and logistical challenges ahead. In the afternoon I came across some laughing and hollering dayhikers skinny dipping and basking in the sun on the banks of the Kern River, and it reminded me to relax. People come to these places by choice because they’re beautiful and make us happy.
I busted out 28 miles on my first day on the trail, which is a generally inadvisable thing to do, but I felt good and genuinely didn’t know what else to do with my time. This part of the trail is generally known as “the desert”, but it’s quite lush right now because of recent rain.
While hiking the Annapurna Circuit, I learned a thing or two about how to get the most out of my experience with the trail and surrounding area. Not only that, but because this route has become so commercialized and popular with first-time backpackers, I witnessed …
Packing for the Annapurna Circuit is a unique and exciting challenge. Relative to the trail’s 220 kilometre distance, the variety of terrain and weather along its length is incredibly varied. In peak season, hikers will start and finish sweating it out in 30 degrees Celsius …
The first day was a long, hot, and bumpy but uneventful bus ride; the actual walking began the following day. We caught a small “micro-bus” from Kathmandua to Besisahar where we picked up out permits, and then caught a bus to Ngadi where we stayed in our first hotel.
Looking back to earlier in the year, I didn’t have any long-term plans to run this race. I registered last minute because I wanted to get some practice carrying a bunch of mandatory gear and I had some visions about how nice it would be …
Show up at the track. Nobody’s running for an hour but there’s already some kind of warm-up exercise going on. It’s too early for that. There’s a beer garden built out of hurdles. That’s cute. Something to remember to be happy about once the stress …