Annapurna Base Camp Trekking Route

We depart Pokhara by private vehicle for the drive to Nayapul, where our walking route officially begins. Today's trail follows the Modi Khola valley, passing through small farming hamlets and terraced fields before a steady climb on stone staircases brings us to Tikhedhunga for our first night.

We start our morning climbing the steep stone steps known locally as Ulleri—over three thousand individual stairs carved into the hillside. Once through the village, our path levels out as we enter dense rhododendron and oak forests, eventually reaching the ridge settlement of Ghorepani.

We make a pre-dawn ascent to the viewpoint at Poon Hill (3210 m) to watch the sunrise strike Dhaulagiri and the Annapurna range. Returning to Ghorepani for breakfast, we then traverse ridgelines through deep forest before descending to our teahouse in Tadapani.

Our route drops steeply through forested slopes down to the Kimrong Khola river before a long, sustained uphill pull on stone pathways leads us onto the ridge at Chhomrong, a large Gurung village sitting directly beneath the peak of Annapurna South.

We descend thousands of stone steps out of Chhomrong to cross the Modi Khola on a suspension bridge, then climb back up through bamboo thickets and patches of forest through Sinuwa until we reach the deep river gorge at Dovan.

We continue tracking up the narrow Modi Khola valley, passing through areas prone to avalanche activity where our guides maintain strict group spacing. The vegetation thins noticeably as we gain altitude and arrive at the small cluster of lodges at Deurali.

We hike out of the gorge into the wide glacial basin of the Annapurna Sanctuary, stopping first at Machhapuchhre Base Camp before continuing across the lateral moraine to our final destination at Annapurna Base Camp (4130 m).

We catch the early morning light hitting the south face of Annapurna before retracing our steps down the valley, losing elevation rapidly as we descend past Deurali and Dovan to spend the night in the forested camp of Bamboo.

We climb back up to Upper Sinuwa and drop down the long stone staircase into Chhomrong, then take a diverging trail that leads steeply down the hillside to the hot springs settlement of Jhinu Danda for a well-earned soak near the river.

Our final morning follows the Modi Khola downstream along low-altitude valley trails through small farming villages to the roadhead at Nayapul, where our transport waits to drive us back to Pokhara.