Overseas Walks: Rhodo heaven in Annapurna

A photographic essay by Kathy Ombler of the 12 day Annapurna/Dhaulagiri Trek she completed with World Expeditions, last April.

In my Wellington garden I have five rhododendrons. One is healthy. Every year it blooms a lurid pink; a shade I don’t even like much. The other four are struggling, looking set to join several predecessors who for reasons unbeknown to wannabe-gardener me have long departed to rhodo heaven. Go well, I say.

Because last April I found that rhodo heaven. Close, in a way, to heaven itself, 3000 metres high on the Annapurnas, those grand Himalayan peaks that soar from sheer gorges and steep valleys, their lower slopes lined by terraces and dotted with blue-roofed villages, all linked by ancient, worn, stonestep pathways. That’s where I found rhododendron heaven; beneath the snowy summits entire forests, blazed with reds and pinks and cerises, blended with white magnolias, and sweetsmelling daphnes.

Trekking is big in Nepal, and Annapurna is one of the country’s biggest trekking regions. Popular routes climb to Annapurna Base Camp, or trail around the entire range on the Annapurna Circuit (now more of a half circuit given new air and jeep access to the town of Jomsom). Or they take a shorter hike to Ghorepani Village then climb with the pre-dawn crowds to capture the mountain sunrise from Poon

Hill, the overwhelmed ‘Instagram’ spot of the region.

During its long history of organising trekking tours throughout the Himalaya, World Expeditions has worked with local villagers and guides to develop itineraries away from these well beaten trails.

For accommodation they have built relationships with remote farmers and lodge owners, and in places established their own, exclusive tented camps. Cooks travel with the groups. This lessens the risk of food-related illness, while their use of gas stoves avoids the need to cut rhodo forests to fuel cooking fires (increased trekking has increased demand for firewood here). Plastic drink

bottles are a no-no, every day the guides boil water for trekkers to replenish their own refillable flasks or camel backs. The company hires local porters, and rewards them with both wages and trekking gear.

For the trekkers there are many positives: avoiding the masses, being kinder to the land, supporting local employment, opportunities to learn about local life, not getting sick and all the time of course enjoying that overwhelming; those high white massifs and, draped around their lower flanks, the world’s largest rhododendron forest.

Compiling a short summary of pictorial highlights of a 12 day trek is not easy, here’s my attempt.

Above: Good morning Dhaulagiri (8,167m and the world’s 7th highest mountain). Looking across Kali Gandaki, the world’s deepest gorge, from Kopra community eco lodge. Left: Porters Laxamun, Sanjay and Sanur. Each trekker’s bag weighed up to 15kg and each porter carried two bags, plus other stuff. We carried day packs.

Above top: At lower altitudes we trekked through cultivated terraces. Middle right: A water buffalo sniffs at strangers passing by. Below right: Our group of 9 trekkers was supported by a head guide, trekking guide, two cooks, six porters and a Sirdar (boss of the porters and cooks). From left: Prasant (guide), Kathy, Govinda (trekking guide) and Dhobra (Sirdar).

Rhodo heaven in Annapurna

Above left: Our porters climb through Ghorepani Village. Above right: Our cooks also carried their kitchen!

Above: Rhodo forests vie for attention with the Dhaulagiri massif. Below left: ‘Walking trees’ were a common sight as locals gathered vegetation and carried it home to feed their goats and cows, usually tethered in a shed by their house. Above right: H Namaste.