Nepal has often been touted by many as their favorite place in the world to explore. There is just something about it that pulls them again and again. Let us not fight its calls and explore Nepal right back, but this time from a totally different view. We discuss trekking Nepal’s epic Annapurna Sanctuary Circuit, a high glacial basin that’s about twenty miles south of the town of Pokhara that is surrounded by a ring of huge mountains called the Annapurna Range. Still rocking it with adventure travel at 72 years old, we talk to Stan Jacobson as he recalls his trip to the Annapurna Sanctuary with us right from how he trained for it to the visit itself. Stan shares his encounters with the people, going through the trail, visiting temples, and more!

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Listen to the podcast here:

Hike the Annapurna Sanctuary Trek in Nepal

An epic hike in one of the world’s most magical places: Nepal! The Annapurna Sanctuary Trek takes about two weeks. You basically hike in the valleys below the majestic peaks of the Himalayas in an ‘ampitheatre’ surrounded by the Annapurna mountains (South, I and III), Gangapurna and Machapuchare (Fish Tail).

Explore bustling,mind-blowing Kathmandu before your trek to begin your acclimatization.  Everyone tells me they feel like they are on another planet!  Once you’ve had your fill of the temples and markets of Kathmandu, you’ll fly to lakeside Pokhara at the foot of the Himalayas.  Then you’ll begin your trek up the glacial Modi Khola River gorge, witnessing breathtaking scenery that just gets better every day!  Stay in local Gurung ‘tea houses’ with the locals at the end of each incredibel day!

 

Kathmandu

You begin your adventure by arriving in Kathmandu. You’ll get acclimated to the higher altitudes and have time to explore the bustling capital of Nepal. Visit some of the temples and markets for a mind-blowing experience.  From Kathmandu, you’ll fly to the lakeside town of Pokhara to begin your hike.

Here are some of the highlights of your Himalayan trek:

Trek to ABC along the Annapurna Circuit Trail
Visit Gurung settlements and local villages
Soak in natural hot springs in Jhinudanda
Explore the bustling city of Kathmandu
Walk to Swayambhunath “Monkey†Temple
Explore Pokhara and the Himalayan Mountain Museum
Watch the sunrise over Machapuchare

Here’s a recommended itinerary for your Annapurna hike:

[Following each destination is the hiking distance and day’s end elevation]

Day 1 Arrive Kathmandu: na 4600’/1400m
Day 2 Visit SwayambhunathTemple ; fly to Pokhara: na 2713’/827m
Day 3 Hike to Kyumi: 7.5mi/12km 3937’/1200m
Day 4 Hike to Chhomrong: 5.6mi/9km 7120’/2170m
Day 5 Hike to Dobhan: 7.1mi/11.5km 8530’/2600m
Day 6 Hike to Deurali: 3.1mi/5km 10,500’/3200m
Day 7 Hike to Machapuchare Base Camp: 3.1mi/5km 12,140’/3700m
Day 8 Hike to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC: 8.6mi/14km 8530’/2600m)
Day 9 Hike to Jhinudanda: 6.2mi/14km 5840’/1780m
Day 10 Hike to Tolka: 5.6mi/9km 5580’/1700m
Day 11 Hike to Phedi; Journey to Pokhara: 6.8mi/11km 2720’/830m
Day 12 Free day in Pokhara: na 2720’/830m
Day 13 Return to Kathmandu: na 4600’/1400m
Day 14 Depart

Stay in local ‘Tea Houses’

Not only will you enjoy some of the most gorgeous scenery on the planet, you’ll also have plenty of opportunities to meet the locals! You’ll stay in the local ‘tea houses’ owned and operated by the Nepalese people, whom you’ll find to be friendly and gracious.

Recommended Tour Company

If you want to do this adventure, I would recommend going with my affiliate, Active Adventures. I know our names sound similar, but we are two different companies.

At Active Travel Adventures, I strive to provide you with the information you need to leap into adventure travel with confidence.  I offer unbiased opinions of what I think is good or not.  Some of my recommendations are affiliate partners, which means that at no cost to you, I might earn a small commission or free/discounted travel.  If you use one of my recommendations, please use my links to show your support of ATA – thanks!  Kit

Hike Nepal’s Epic Annapurna Sanctuary with Stan Jacobson

Many of our past guests have touted Nepal as their favorite place in the world, a place they returned to again and again. Even though there are so many new places to explore, something keeps drawing them back. Most people that go there tend to hike around and up to Everest basecamp. We’re going to go to Nepal, but we’re going to go to a different section. It’s a doable but difficult circuit that’s held in the valley that’s surrounded by these giant, majestic mountains. I believe that if you want to kick ass life, adding adventure travel to your life is a must. You not only get to see some of the world’s most remarkable landscapes and meet some of the coolest people, but adventure travel makes you feel empowered and helps you tackle some of the biggest challenges in your everyday life. Come along for another great adventure on Active Travel Adventures podcast.

We’ll be trekking the Annapurna Sanctuary Circuit. We’ll talk a little bit about Kathmandu, that crazy town that everybody loves to go to and the benefits of adventure travel. We’re going to head to the magical Himalayan Mountains of Nepal. Nepal is located north and west of India, west of my beloved Bhutan, south of Tibet and north and west of the Everest area in Nepal. The Annapurna Sanctuary is a high glacial basin that’s about twenty miles south of the town of Pokhara. This plateau is high, about 4,000 meters or about 12,000 feet elevation, and surrounded by a ring of huge mountains called the Annapurna Range. Most of these mountains are over 21,000 feet. We’re not climbing up these high mountains. We’re going in the valley looking up at the mountains. Oddly, it makes sense though.

Because it’s surrounded by such tall mountains, in the summertime it still doesn’t get a whole lot of sunlight, maybe about seven hours a day. This also creates some cool ecosystem. There are lots of cool things to see in addition to these massive mountains. The mountains themselves are considered holy by the local Gurung people. They consider it sacred. The local Hindus and Buddhists also believe it to be the home of many of their deities, and they consider the plumes of the clouds that come above the mountains as the smoke of their holy incense. We’re going to be talking to a gentleman who is incredible. He’s 72 years old and rocking it with adventure travel, and he did this amazing adventure. Let’s get started and head back to Nepal to the Annapurna Sanctuary.

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Stan, start by introducing yourself. Maybe tell us a little bit about your background.

My name is Stan Jacobson. I am 72 years old, born and raised in Southern Minnesota. I’ve lived here all my life. I had three children who live nearby. They’re grown. I worked at the Mayo Clinic as a hospital pharmacist. I retired years ago, but I work every Thursday so I can afford to go on adventures. I love to travel.

How did you get into adventure travel?

I’ve always been intrigued by mountains. When my kids were little, we would always go west to the Rocky Mountains. It was a slow progression of doing a hike in the Grand Teton and stumbling on the Exum Climbing School, and being intrigued by that. I think it was in 1987, my best friend and I were at the Exum Climbing School and ended up climbing the Grand Teton. It’s one gradual step after another like that. I can’t exactly remember how, but we decided to go to Machu Picchu. This would have been in 2014. Myself and some other folk friends of mine, we put the spreadsheet together and compared what we wanted to do with the cost, the number of days, and what each company offered. There were seven companies and we ended up going with Active Adventures. It was a knock-your-socks-off trip to Machu Picchu and South America, continued on and went to Patagonia with them. The latest was when I went to Nepal with them.

It sounds like you’ve found them the same way I did. I wanted to do research because I want my recommendations to the companies I feel very strongly about. I had been blown away with the quality of their tours, their people and that’s why I promote them. You cannot buy promotion on this program. I don’t sell advertising. They’re going to be the companies that I believe in and Active is high up on the list. What is it about adventure travel itself that rocks your boat? What are you getting out of adventure travel?

I got interested in running and I discovered along the way that the harder you work at something, the more you appreciate it. That holds true for hiking. Fundamentally, the more effort you put into it, let’s say you’re going to go on a hike, the more you’re going to appreciate and you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment afterward. That and photography is a hobby of mine. My wife says it’s a disease with me. I love to take pictures and when you’re hiking versus biking, canoeing or anything like that, you can have your camera in hand so you can shoot at will. That played into it also.

It’s the feeling of accomplishment. It boosts my self-confidence, my self-esteem. Plus, you get to see all the pretty places too that are hard to get to by roads in many places. Before we even met, I did not realize that you were in your early seventies and you chose a particularly difficult challenge by going to Annapurna. What on Earth made you choose that?

I’ve always wanted to see the Himalayas. Since my middle 30s, I’ve always been very active physically. I saw my father passed away. He dropped dead in front of my eyes when I was fourteen years old. He was 52 years old at the time. It sounds silly, but that leaves an impression on you. I actually lived 52 years wondering if I was going to live as long as my father did. I used to smoke cigarettes and I knew I couldn’t continue to do that. I had read a book, I was 33 years old. It was called Running & Being by George Sheehan. It was more of a philosophical way of life versus a physical endeavor that he explained and I said, “That is me.†I went to a little park near here and ran basically across the street, had good running out of my nose and my eyes, but I stuck with it. That was a turning point for me. I always said I’d give $1,000 to anybody who told me I’d never wanted another cigarette. Running did that for me. You can’t run and smoke at the same time.

I used to be a smoker as well. I hate to run. I love to walk. I love to hike, but I hate to run but I wanted to learn how to do it for different reasons. How I ended up doing is I’d walk to two telephone poles in my neighborhood then run to the next one. Eventually, I was able to go all the way around. I was like, “I can see that telephone pole. I can make it to that telephone pole.â€

Running changed the whole trajectory of my life. It has always been my first love. I can’t do it anymore either. I do other things to maintain some muscle tone and a lot of cardiac stuff.

How did you train for this adventure?

I didn’t. I may have underestimated it a little but I didn’t do anything extraordinary for it. Sometimes, I spend an hour on a stair climber.

Your daily life is actually training.

I don’t know if I had stepped it up anymore, I might have injured myself. I keep a pretty high background level of fitness.

We’re talking about Annapurna, which I’ve learned is also over in Nepal. Can you tell us a little bit about it, just a brief overview? We’ll get into some more details about the visit itself.

Basically, we flew into Kathmandu a couple of days earlier. It was like landing on another planet. It was an explosion of the senses. It’s this bustling city of a whole other culture. Mainly, that’s where we started and met our Active Adventure guide. We stayed there. We left and flew from Kathmandu, which is about 1.5 million people I believe, to a smaller town called Pokhara. My sense of Pokhara was about 200,000 people. It’s another stepping off point for adventures in the Himalayas and it seems to be a religious Mecca. There was a Buddhist Stupa up on a hill. We took this half-hour flight to Pokhara. I’m told that it’s an eight-and-a-half-hour drive if you were to get in a van and drive there.

The next day, we got in a van and drove to another small city. It’s a settlement called Nayapul. By van, that was about an hour and a half. We got our gear loaded up and met our partners. It was basically five days hiking up this valley that the Modi River runs in to the head of the valley. We stayed in a tea house. Our biggest day of the whole trip, we got up at 4:00 in the morning, went up to Annapurna basecamp and back down to the tea house that we’d stayed in. That was on the sixth day. On the seventh, eighth and ninth, we’re hiking back down the valley. We’ve crossed over to the other side of the river in the last day and a half or so on the other side of the river. We hiked out back to Pokhara, back to Kathmandu and back home.

Let’s unpack that a little bit and start at Kathmandu. You said that was an explosion of the senses. Can you give us a little bit more detail about what you saw, what you smelled, what you tasted?

Organized chaos, because we got into a van that was taking us from the airport to the hotel we’re staying, which was right in the center of the city in a district called the Thamel District. The streets are very narrow. There are all manner of cars and lots of motorcycles, rickshaws, pedestrians. You’re driving on the left side of the road, which we Americans are not used to, but that didn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference. That’s where the majority of the traffic is. It was not congested. There seemed to be these unwritten rules so you could get through. There were cars, motorcycles, people and bicycles everywhere.

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My son and I, we kept looking at each other saying like, “Can you believe this?†Our hotel was right in the center of Kathmandu. It was full of mom and pop shops that sold everything under the sun. The street near our hotel was on, it’s extremely narrow. It would be more comparable to an alley and it was clogged with people. When you would walk along there, once in a while you’d get bumped by a car or a motorcycle, but they’re not going fast because they can’t go fast. They’re trying to work their way through all the other traffic. That was another thing. I practice yoga for a couple of years and what I look forward to at the end was the Shavasana where you lay on your back and trying to do a small bit of meditation. Our practice leader would always end by saying, “Namaste.†I didn’t realize it but when you’re greeted in Nepal, people greet you by saying, “Namaste.†They also put palms together often at heart center. From the airport, we had a dozen people say, “Namaste,†to us.

Are the people nice?

Yeah, if they caught the eye of the person who’s coming to them, they would say, “Namaste,†with a smile. It was a very welcoming community.

Do they have a colorful dress as I saw in Bhutan? Bhutan was another planet. The culture was so different than what I’m used to.

There were those. We didn’t see a lot of the local religious people. They would get exotic with the long beards, and I’m not going to say togas. You could spot a European or American a mile away, but it’s hard to describe. The women were more often in saris. The men, not so much all the time, but a lot of vests were worn. They had a little round cap that was very distinctive with all kinds of decorations on them. They’re all varied. That was interesting to say the least.

I looked at your itinerary the first day and a half that looks pretty steep. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

That was one of the downsides. I started off on my left foot. I’m right footed. The night before, we had a get-together dinner in Pokhara to get acquainted with our tour group and something didn’t agree with me. I was sick during the night and during the van ride from Pokhara, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to start but I was determined that I would. The first day was warm, but it wasn’t particularly steep and I was pretty shaky. Plus, the idiot that I am, I put a large camera and a large lens in my day pack. Our porters carried the bulk of our gear. I got through the first day and the second day, it was very warm again. I’m talking 90 degrees and sunny. Towards the end of that day, it started getting steep from the last rest stop to the tea house that we were going to stay at. You could see it up above us on the ridge top, I said, “That’s it up there.†Our guide, her nickname is Button, said, “It’s straight up there.†She was right. That was a hard start for me but then I started feeling better after that. We were at a higher elevation. It was cooler.

It looks like you’re going anywhere between three and ten miles a day, depending on the difficulty of the trail. You said the trail is not one we would consider a trail. Talk about that, please.

Probably 90% of it is stone steps. I’ve hiked the Inca trail. Incas built steps and if you think about it, you have to raise your foot each step versus a trail where you can swing your feet. It’s more walking. Going up steps after a while gets very tedious. Some of these were steep and they were long. It was like stairways to heaven.

Was it heaven when you get to the top?

 

Yeah. You hear me complaining about being sick and the stairs, all of that recedes at the end of the trip. You only think about the grandeur, the magnificence and what you’ve done and the accomplishment. All of that is minor. At the time, it was pretty big stuff.

Were you proud of yourself? What did you feel at the end of the day?

I don’t sit around too much because I’m walking around looking with my camera. Some of the shorter days, we would get done rather early. We have time to relax, get the camera out and get cleaned up. I was often out and about around the trail at the end of the day’s hike.

How are you feeling inside? That’s trekking up a lot of stairs.

After the first two days, I was all into it. I was hoping that we’ll have excellent weather, that we would have clear skies and that continued. I was pretty jazzed up, pumped up after the second day.

You’re doing the circuits.

At the head of the valley that we were going up, on the right-hand side, would have been Machapuchare, which the nickname for that is Fishtail. I believe it’s 22,000 feet tall and it’s very precipitous. Instead of coming to a single peak, it comes to a double peak and it looks very much like a fishtail, hence its nickname. On the other side of the valley, up a small side valley, sits Annapurna South and Annapurna One, which is the first 8,000 plus peak that was ever climbed in 1950 something. They’re sister peaks.

8,000 feet or 8,000 meters?

8,000 meters.

I believe the Fishtail is up over 20,000 something. You never went any higher than 13,500. You can see the peaks all around you even though you’re up high. You still see the granite peaks. Tell us a little bit about what the landscape looked like, what you’re seeing.

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Machapuchare is iconic. When we did the van ride from Pokhara to Nayapul, we didn’t know it at the time, you could see it from Pokhara. If the skies were clear, you could see Fishtail Mountain and off and on during the trek. You could also see not only Fishtail but also Annapurna South, which our goal was to get to the basecamp below it. You’d see them off and on from a distance and they’re just spectacular. I had one of those jaw dropping moments. I told you about that steep uphill on the end of the second day. I think the name of the tea house was called Chomrong. It sits way up on a ridge. I sat down, got my pack off and there are buildings on either side of the trail and let go. It sauntered past the end of the buildings. I looked up and there was Annapurna South. It was gorgeous, dominating the landscape. My jaw just dropped. I said to my son, “You’ve got to come and see this,†because it was so spectacular.

The tea houses, are they family-owned and operated?

These tea houses are like hostels. They’re small. They would have a series of several rooms and they’d have two beds in each one of them. There would be communal toilets and showers. Everybody used the same dining room and a kitchen. They may all be contiguous or some of them are separate. No two are the same. The toilets were all different, let me put it that way. Some of them even had a European style toilet versus squat toilets, which are highly desired. The shower rooms all had solar heat, like a black tank up on the roof that was heated by the rays of the sun. Some of them had propane heating also, gas heating. Those were much desired because you didn’t have to be the first one in the shower to get hot water because it would last. We had two beds in each one. The porters along with the local people who were running the tea house would do our dinner. They would always have the dining room that the group could get together and eat in.

Tell us a little bit about your group.

There were ten of us, a couple from Canada and they were a little bit younger than I was. They were retired as I recall. Another retired couple from Saint Paul, Minnesota, a younger couple from Michigan, and two single ladies who knew each other. They were from out west. I can’t remember exactly where right now.

That’s a nice mix. You had porters. If you’re staying in tea houses at night, what are the porters carrying?

We put all our extra clothes and gear into a very large duffle bag and each one of those porters would then take two duffle bags. We had five porters, there were ten of us, that’s what they would carry. It turned out to be quite a bill of a week. They gave us guidelines on how much weight we could put in those. I can’t remember what that was, but they were carrying a considerable amount of weight.

They carry it in a funny way too.

They carry them basically in a large bag. There weren’t shoulder straps on it like you and I would be thinking. What they had was a cloth band. It would be a cloth that had been folded over itself several times and it was tied on to the pack with very heavy twine, thin rope and wrapped around their pack. That went over their forehead. They cared that thing as a tumpline and that’s all they had. It was this tumpline carrying this huge pack.

It’s going to be hard in the neck, I would think.

 

One of our porters was a Sherpa and had been on climbing trips to Mount Everest. I think he was up to the final camp once. I don’t think he ever went up to the top but it was very heavy, 150 pounds at the most. I had occasionally put my arm around his shoulder. It’s made of steel.

You had no pack animals. It’s all human transported.

We would see some pack animals, but they were carrying large propane tanks, something that would be physically impossible for a human being to carry. We saw other porters carrying material things constantly. Everything one would see in that valley, all the building materials, everything was brought in by a human porter. We saw people carrying like three or four sheets of four by eight plywood, huge loads. It never failed to amaze me.

The trail is the road. There is no road.

Early on, on the first day and on the very last day we were on a “road.†You may or may not drive your car on it if you were there, but there was some four-wheel-drive traffic. Between the first day and the last day were trails.

Are you going through villages? Tell us what you were seeing besides the mountains along your ways.

I’m going to put it more like structures and very small settlements along the way that we would pass through some from time to time. They would also as often as not have a tea house located with them. It was that we weren’t staying there that night. They would have small stores that would sell the rudimentary things that hikers would want: Gatorade, chips, those kinds of things but very small quantities. I’m hard pressed to call them a town or a village. They were a gathering of buildings and you realize a lot of them had been there for a long time. The farmers, the people that would live there lived in those buildings also.

You started in vegetative areas before you go above the tree line. They did have some building materials.

We saw a quarry where they had chipped out large flat pieces of sleet that they could use for building material. There were piles of that, but that was the only construction type thing that we saw. We did see some people carrying these 4×8 sheets of plywood and a long 10×12 foot beams of 4×4. It was an eye-opener.

Where was the Monkey Temple?

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That is in Kathmandu.

What is the Monkey Temple?

It has a Buddhist Stupa which is a place where Buddhists come to worship and a lot of religious things that people come to see. It’s a building with prayer wheels and it’s up on a hilltop. It’s infested with monkeys. They’re everywhere. At the very top was a very ornate Stupa and buildings around it. Souvenirs are sold up there as well.

If the Stupa is the same as in Bhutan, I liken it into a miniature circus tent. It’s in that shape, a little pointy top. At the bottom is an opening where they insert a prayer and the Stupas are prayers sent out to all sentient beings. Does that sound something that you heard there?

Two that I saw were very large structures.

I’ve seen some big ones, but I have a little one. I actually have in my kitchen. We’d see little pockets in the mountains of hundreds of little Stupas that people had placed there. There are some large ones at the Dukula Pass, where it was a more permanent structure.

These were like a thimble that had a pointed top, but there were large structures like a storey or two high.

Yours are much bigger than the ones I saw.

They call it the Monkey Palace. It had a Buddhist name.

The monkeys have taken over. Were they friendly?

 

Our guide took all our water bottles and they were friendly, but they said just ignore them because apparently, they’re attracted to those water bottles and they try to take them. If you grab onto them, they will win one way or another apparently.

They can bite you.

You didn’t want to get scratched by one because it can take months to heal they said.

You don’t want any kind of injury in that country anyway, I’m sure. When you were tired at the end of the day, there was a hot spring at least one place along the way.

Although we didn’t go down there, it would have been an option. That was our longest day. We were ten hours on the trail. Had been up at 4:00 in the morning to hike. Let me back up. At the head of the valley was Machapuchare basecamp, the Fishtail basecamp. We stayed there the fifth night and on the sixth day. We got up at 4:00 AM in the dark to go a kilometer and a half or so uphill to the Annapurna basecamp. The goal of the trip was to be up there for the sunrise. That was at 4:00 AM, you’re up, 1.5 kilometers roughly uphill, see the sunrise and come back down to Machapuchare basecamp. We had breakfast there, got all our gear back together and went way down the mountainside to the place that had that spring. We were pretty well fried by the end of that day. No one went to the spring. We just sat. I think you could buy a beer there, and I had one.

How did you feel when you’d gotten back down that mountain?

I have a nasty habit of not drinking enough and I didn’t drink enough fluid. On day five, when we were to arrive at Machapuchare basecamp at the head of the valley, I started not feeling well. I think maybe it was dehydration and maybe altitude sickness, and it got to the point where I didn’t even go to dinner that night. If you had that feeling, all I want to do is be curled up in my sleeping bag. That’s all I wanted. The next morning when we hit the trail before sunlight, it was all I could do to bring myself to do that. They had one of the porters carry my day pack and the rest of the group went ahead. I did take a step or two at a time and then stop and by sheer power of will, I had got up to Machapuchare basecamp.

My son breathed a huge sigh of relief because he knew how disappointed I’d be if I hadn’t got up there. Our guide, bless her heart, got me into the tea house and gave me a little pep talk. She said, “Drink all the tea you can drink here. Keep drinking and keep remembering that when we go down, we lose elevation. I’m hoping that you’ll start to feel better,†because I was seriously like, “How am I going to get off of this mountain?†I knew this was our longest day. The tea started turning it around and I started feeling much better. Not whole yet but by the time we got back down to Machapuchare basecamp, I felt good. I’m confident. Let’s put it that way.

I’m taking you didn’t use one of the water bladders?

I did not. I have one and I left it at home.

Is that something you would recommend to make sure you don’t get dehydrated because dehydration can also cause a little bit of altitude sickness?

Yeah, I would highly recommend it. The reason I don’t carry that is I have a lot of expensive camera gear and I have this feeling, “What if I pop the bladder and ruin my camera gear?†That would really ruin the trip for me. All that aside, I did not drink enough. My pack was not convenient to get to my water. I’ve since gotten a new pack and I did not drink enough. My son had these little tubes of powder. He let me use a few of them. Is it called crystal light? They put it in your water and I wish I had brought those along because the water just tastes so much better that way. You just drink a little more. I think when it’s flavored, in my case.

We all tend to under-hydrate ourselves and it makes a big difference in your energy level as well as your ability to handle the altitude. It sounds like Button was a big supporter too. Tell us a little bit about your guides.

We had Button. Amanda Sutton was her full name. She was our Active Adventures guide. The secondary local guide was Emirate. He used to be a porter. Button maintains the right pace for the group, was very attentive to everyone how they were feeling. She would actually push water but I ignored her to my judgment. She would advocate drinking by saying, “Drink a lot.†There were other people that had minor stomach ailments from here and again. She had a pack of medicines for everybody and blisters. I cannot say enough about Active Adventures’ guides. I had the same one for the two trips that I did in South America, the same guide and there isn’t a better person on the planet. They’re delightful people.

I like that they use their own employees so as they don’t sub-contract out. They know exactly who’s going on each trip with you, in addition to having a local guide as well. I think it’s important.

They’re stellar. If anyone’s thinking of hesitating about hiring Active Adventures, my experience is I always go a day or two early and get your feet on the ground so to speak, get your bearings. Once you meet your guide, you can totally relax because they have all the dinners arranged. They know when to leave to get to walk to the local restaurant. You hand yourself over to them and everything is taken care of. All you’ve got to think about is the adventure you’re about to partake and wallow in it.

I like it particularly with the adventure travel because it could be so difficult to figure out the logistics on your own. I went to Pisgah National Forest and let the Visitor Center plan my whole week for me or hire somebody like Active and all I have to do is just show up and participate. I am totally sold on having others make the arrangements for me. Like all of us, I’m so swamped, I don’t have the time to do it anyway. Logistics are so difficult on adventure travel that I’m just totally on board with this.

When we flew from Kathmandu to Pokhara, they have two airport buildings. One is the international flights and one is the domestic flights. The domestic airport, it was throngs of people talking loud and the overhead would come on. I couldn’t understand what they’re saying, and a lot of trekking people and also. They have piles of gear. I don’t know how you would fend your way through that airport without a guide because our flight was supposed to go at 10:30 in the morning. It goes when it goes. It was about 1:00 in the afternoon before it went. They were perfectly at ease with that. The guide part was invaluable.

They know when they need to put in the cushions and know where the glitches can be. What surprised you about this adventure?

Kathmandu surprised me. I did not have any preconceived notion of what that city was like. I love to go back there. We drove quite some distance away from it on the way to the airport. They do cremate bodies along the river that runs through there. There’s a big temple and we could see the smoke rising from a cremation. A friend of mine had been there, not Active Adventure, but in Kathmandu. He said, “You really need to see that.†I only saw that from a distance and I would love to go back in Kathmandu. Pokhara is this religious center and we were there. Apparently, there are 103 holidays in Nepal in a year. When we got done with our trip, it was a holiday and there were throngs of people. It is so interesting. There were cattle wandering around and there were a lot of people in a religious dress, not only the women but men also. It’s entirely foreign to me. Everybody’s nice, they’re wonderful people.

Is there anything you wish you had known before you have gone over there?

No, I can’t say that.

What advice would you give to somebody that’s considering trekking in Annapurna?

If you’re not physically fit, get as fit as you can. If you travel with Active Adventures, they have their guide and there’s a secondary guide. Their guide is at the front. The secondary is at the rear of your hiking group. On all three trips with them, there have been people who lag back and because I like to take pictures, I often would hike back with them because we’d stop a little more often and I could use my camera. The more fit you can be, the more you would enjoy your trip for sure. There are some trying sets of stairs, let’s put it that way.

It looked like a very challenging trek. On a scale of one to five with five being Machu Picchu difficult, where would you land this?

I would say it was the Inca trail and this was on a par.

On a scale of one to five, would you put this at a four or a five?

As far as difficulty, I put it at four.

Do you have a favorite memory or a story about your trip? If I said, “Tell me about your trip,†what’s the first thing that’s going to come out of your mouth?

The Himalayas are magnificent and you don’t have to get close to them to see them. After we had made the hike to Annapurna basecamp, you’re right underneath the thing. There’s a valley between you and the mountain. That’s all cool and it’s nice, but you don’t get this sense of how big they are in proportion to the landscape. If you can go to see the Himalayas, I would recommend it wholeheartedly.

You’re pretty well-traveled. On a scale of one to ten, where would this adventure fit?

I’ve traveled a lot and I have to put all three of my Active Adventures: Machu Picchu, Patagonia and this one on a par. Not to say that I haven’t been to places that were very cool, but you factor in that I had to work to do it. I was talking about it and that adds another measure of accomplishment and you feel good about it. All three of those had been humdingers in my ballpark.

You forgot to answer the questions, Stan. On a scale of one to ten, where does this adventure fit?

I have to factor in that I didn’t feel well but that’s right up there by a ten. It’s fantastic. You aren’t going to see this any other place in the world or anything like it I don’t think.

No regrets about going even though you did get a little sick?

No. Those things have receded. I only think about, “I did it. I was there. I know what it’s like.†We had good weather.

You did something most people in the world can’t even do. You did that at 72. It’s amazing. Most people aren’t even fit enough to do day one, not to mention the entire adventure.

I understand. I am extremely fortunate. I’m very grateful.

It sounds like you work hard for your fitness too.

I do.

It’s not all in good genes as much as I wish it could be.

I might as well mention this. On day two, in the last segment, it was hot and I had too much weight in my pack. It was steps and it was straight up to the hill. I did develop a little pain in my chest but I described it to that bad meal and it didn’t crop up again during the whole trip, but a month and a half after I got back home, I did have a stent placed in one of my coronary arteries. I’d had two stents years ago. If you got the bad DNA, no matter how much exercise you do, even if you eat moderately well, exercise isn’t a magic apple. That sure helps.

Any last advice that you’d like to tell our audience about your Annapurna trek?

Things did go wrong for me, having eaten bad food and also getting dehydrated/mountain sickness. I had watched a movie about Yvon Chouinard, the guy who founded Patagonia. It was a documentary. In there, he said something that stuck with me. He said, “The adventure doesn’t begin until something goes wrong.†That did add to my adventure, not feeling well, I have to say. Helen Keller also said, “Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing.†If you put those two together, you need to have something go wrong for your life to be something like that.

The story always seems to come from when things go wrong. It’s usually the mishaps, miscues and things that go awry that when you beat that challenge, you had the fortitude to keep chugging along, when you didn’t feel well or when things go wrong, and you solve the problem or you get through it, that’s when you feel like you’ve earned that pat on the back.

After I’d eaten a meal and spent the night not sleeping, I’m very sick to my stomach but I’ve got to get through it, “How am I going to do this?†I took it one step at a time. When I look back at it, I can only smile.

Did you have to give yourself pep talks? What was going through your head? Were you saying, “I can do this. How can I do this?†What were you thinking?

All I knew is I was going to do the next thing. That morning, I needed to get my gear together and get it in the van. Once I got to the van, I knew I needed to get the start of the trail. I’m going to start on the trail and the rest is history. I got on the trail and it worked out.

At your own little run to the light post just like me. That makes us a great place to stop. Let’s all try to make it to that next light post.

I’d like to mention one other thing. Back in 1987, the first time that I climbed the Grand Teton, we did it with Exum Guide. It was with a friend of mine and my sister-in-law. When we got up to the top of the Grand Teton, the guide’s advice to us was, “Don’t even try to explain this to your friends because they’ll never be able to understand what you’ve just done.†You and I, we’ve tried to explain this, but I would just highly recommend that if you’re thinking about doing something like this, do it because these words into pictures you’re going to post or whatever are minuscule to the overwhelming magnitude and exhilaration you’re going to feel doing something like this for sure. I would like to go back and do another hike in that area, to be honest with you.

What’s your next adventure?

I’m going to go to the Dolomites with Active Adventures.

That’s a very popular episode. It sounds like you’re hitting all the cool spots.

I hope I can keep doing this for a little while but who knows what’s the next day is going to bring.

My mom did things until her mid-80s.

I love to hear good stuff like that.

Mom didn’t even get active until she was in her 50s. It started with tennis, moved on to hiking, biking and paddling well into her mid-80s. In fact, that’s similar to me. I didn’t pick up hiking until I turned 50 when I decided I want to learn how to backpack so I could do some section hike to the Appalachian Trail. I fell in love with the mountains and I’ve never looked back. It goes to show there’s hope for all of us. It’s all mind over matter and deciding you want to do it. It’s taking the baby steps and doing like you said, “What’s the next step I have to do to get to this goal?†Thank you so much for your time, Stan. It’s been very interesting and I look forward to hearing more of your adventures.

Thanks for having me.

—

Outside of wanting to go to Annapurna myself, I come away from this interview with a couple of key takeaways. The one thing that keeps coming back to me is that even when you do some difficult things when you adventure travel, that sometimes the suffering or the hardships or the sicknesses whatnot, they end up fortifying you and strengthening you. When you look back, tell the stories and think back in your memories, you’re almost fond of them in some way and they certainly become my favorite stories. Stan had brush off the fact that he had stomach illnesses and he had a little bit of the altitude sickness issues.

Even when I think back on my altitude issue in Costa Rica, it’s the same thing. I was proud of myself for being able to have, through sheer force of will, get the job done and accomplish my goal. Another key thing is that here Stan at 72 years old has outlived his father by twenty years. His father who died of a heart attack and Stan, himself, had the heart issues both twenty years ago, around the same age as his father, and he got back from the trip. He’s taken such good care of himself and taking the time to keep energized, eat healthily, and stay engaged. He’s been able to show us that we can change the trajectory of our heredity if we work at it. It’s another cool thing about adventure travel that makes it easy and fun to do so.

Stan also mentioned that he’s a photographer. There are tons of great photographs, be sure to check those out. I want to remind you too if you do go to Nepal, altitude is an issue, so be sure to look at the Kilimanjaro series that we did. I do cover the altitude in-depth there and pick up on some of those tips and stay hydrated. It’s super important. As Stan says, bring one of those water bladders. It does encourage you to drink more water when it’s right by your lapel. I mentioned earlier in the show that I do not accept advertising and I plan to never accept advertising for this program. I want to be in charge of who I promote. What I do instead of advertising is when I find companies that I truly believe in, then I seek them out.

I form what’s called an affiliate partnership with them. With an affiliate, I may or may not earn a commission. I may or may not get free or discounted travel, but whether or not I get any reimbursement or whatnot from these companies, these are the ones I know, like and trust that I feel confident in recommending to you. Some of these do offer some remuneration. I would appreciate if you’re planning on using them anyway, please use the links on my website, so that they know that you heard about them through the Active Travel Adventures Podcast. It’s a great way to show a little love and support for the work that we’re doing here.

I’d be really grateful and remember, it doesn’t cost you a dime. To give you a little heads up on our next episode, we’re going to a fabulous country that I got to go to in the wintertime. We’re going to see what it’s like to do some adventure in the summertime. We’re going to Iceland. I was lucky enough to go to see the northern lights there several years ago with my sister, but we’ll be back with a great adventure in Iceland. I can’t wait to share it with you. Until then, adventure on.

Important Links:

• Active Adventures
• Running & Being
• Machu Picchu – previous episode
• Patagonia – previous episode
• Exum Guide
• Dolomites – previous episode
• Kilimanjaro – previous episode

 

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Nepal’s Annapurna Sanctuary Trek by Active Travel Adventures is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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