Nepal: Into the Jungles and Back to the Top

Hello loyal readers. I’m here today with the final chapter in our Nepal adventures. Yes, I could split this one into several shorter posts, but given that nearly 5 months has already passed, and that summer is around the corner, I decided to just wrap it up with one final post (well, that and the postscript post of 24 hour in Abu Dhabi!). As you’ll see by the map below, this part of our trekking trip was about 6 total days of hiking on the southern part of the Annapurna circuit. As you can see, we started low, worked our […]

Earning another Gold Bar at the 50th CSM

Hello my loyal and dear readers! I’m sure that by now, many of you have been wondering what has happened to the ‘real’ ActiveSteve. You know, that nut that seems to race every other weekend and posts all about his exploits on this site. Well, the reality is that I’ve pretty much had my head down and not doing too much training all weekend. As you may recall from my most recent race, I have been fighting a pretty bad foot problem, which is more or less just a bursitis and plantar fasciitis. Ultimately, the only thing that can make […]

Nepal: Wedding Anniversary Spent at Thorung-La at 5,416m

As you may recall, in our last post, we were bedding down over 4,800m to get some sleep before tackling the highest point of our trip, Thurong-La Pass. We had been looking forward to this day since the start of our trip. As this was our 2nd wedding anniversary, I’m already unsure how we’ll ever beat that for our future anniversaries, but that’s a thought for another day. To refresh your memories, here’s ther map of the last few days, as well as the coming 2 days. Read on for the full details! Thurong High Camp to Thurong-La Pass, Down […]

Nepal: Restful Days in the Annapurna Valley

Greetings all! In our last post, I took you through the more remote parts of our trek where we wandered the quiet side trails through the Nar Valley and up and over the 5,320m Kang-La pass. Well, for this post and the next, we now join back up with the main trail around the Annapurna circuit in Nepal, but also drag you all up with us up to the highest point in our trip, at 5,416m. This was the Thorung-La Pass, and was also the day of our 2nd wedding anniversary. Hard to top that! Luckily, the journey up to […]

Nepal: Climbing to 5,320m in the Nar Valley

After our first couple introductory days of hiking, it was ‘high’ time to get into the proper mountains! The next section of our trip was a 3-day stretch through the Nar Valley, a place only visited by those with the proper permits and an official guide. We were originally supposed to take a rest day somewhere on this leg, but opted to push on in order to be able to visit other places. The absolute highlight of this part of the trip was crossing the Kang-La Pass, situated at 5,320m above sea level. Read on to hear all about it, […]