Mardi Himal

I remember sitting in my hostel in Reykjavik back in 2021 killing time before heading back to the airport for our flight back home. After the craziest 2 weeks of road tripping with my friends I was still brimming with "travel energy", and started brainstorming my next trip. While perusing the internet, I ran across a hiking video of a guy hiking some trail called “Mardi Himal” in Nepal, traversing an unreal landscape joined by a trusty mountain dog he picks up on the trail. I was so captured by it that I sat down and researched the whole hike right then and there, thinking “some day I’ll do this hike”.

Flash back to the current year and the Mardi Himal trek is my warm up/acclimatization hike before Three Passes! But that doesn’t make it any less awesome.

My journey starts with yet another enjoyable bus ride, this time a balmy 8 hours from Chitwan to Pokhara, successfully navigating the 2nd edge of the Nepal “tourist triangle”. Luckily at this point I’m used to the dirt roads and potholes so big I’m bounced out of my seat. 

Arriving to Pokhara I was immediately struck by how different it was from Kathmandu, I see why most tourists (and Nepalis I talked to) prefer Pokhara. The streets are paved, wider, less hectic, and generally more set up for tourism. While in previous travels I scoffed at the comforts of “touristy” places, now after traveling in developing countries the infrastructure is very very welcome. The city’s tourist area is a bustling lakeside promenade where my hostel was located. It seems so alien compared to my previous experiences in Kathmandu or Chitwan but just a short walk from my hostel are gear shops (selling all sorts of different knock offs!), nice looking restaurants, ATMs, and even a Casino!

Pokhara is the tourist city, the entry point to the Annapurna region of the Himalayas, and the extra tourist dollars make a clear difference. You can reach the Annapurna hikes on just a short bus ride, or do one of the many activities in the surrounding area like bungee jumping, paragliding (parents vetoed this one), or rafting. Completely different from Kathmandu!

After the hell that was my accommodation in Chitwan, I decided to spend the whole extra 5 dollars and get my OWN room with AIR CONDITIONING. I felt like a king with my $15 a night room (breaking the bank!). My first day was just spent enjoying the comforts of being able to lay around and getting some delicious Indian food (finally no more rice and lentils). The next day I on getting all the logistics of my upcoming trip finalied: applying for my permits for the hike, buying hiking poles, and enough cash to get me through all the teahouses.

In the morning I go to the permit office for a confusing and enlightening lesson with the Nepali bureaucracy. Online there are 3 different permit offices that all seem to do the same thing AND there are 2 separate permits to maybe get depending on who you ask? Regardless I just choose the closest office and get started. I get to the counter and find out immediately that the first permit I need to get is complete BS. It’s a permit from the national government, but apparently no one checks it, and there isn’t even anyone at the official permit office to fill out the paperwork for it. Oh well, yay for Nepali Bureaucracy! In a good mood after saving $25 I get sent to a nearby photo studio to get my passport style photos for the actual permit (this permit is from the local government for the Annapurna region). I was chatting with the photographer while waiting for my photos to finish printing and learned that I look somewhat Nepali, at least in comparison to the other tourists. I told the photographer it’s because I’m half filipino, he gets excited and tells me there’s a filipino restaurant right across the street! Sounds like I have my lunch plans.

The Mardi Himal trek is 25 mile trek spread across 3-5 days that reaches up to almost 15,000 feet. As a shorter hike it is often overshadowed by the other hikes in the region, especially the Annapurna circuit trek (8-14 days of hiking) which is just as popular as Everest Base Camp offering stunning view of the Annapurna range.

I categorize Mardi Himal as a hidden gem in comparison to these famous routes because unlike all of the other hikes, it is a ridge line hike offering constant 360 degree views. The highlight of the trip is the towering Machhapuchhare or “Fish Tail” Mountain, a sacred mountain that has never been officially summited before. Like most hikes in Nepal, your accommodations are "Teahouses:, which are small inns offering room and board allowing you to hike with relatively light packs as you traverse from teahouse to teahouse. Many of the “villages” on the trail are just large collections of teahouses all next to each other.

Day 1

The morning of my trek I head out with a full pack, overpacking to better train for Everest Base Camp. I take a taxi over to the bus station, with a decent idea of where to go. The driver is so aggressive through the traffic that we get to the station early enough to *just* miss the previous bus and so my taxi driver in his desire for good service decides to CHASE down the bus and flag it down. To help visualize it, he is driving next to the bus, window down, hanging halfway out of the window yelling and waving at the bus. With the bus stopping, I now have to scramble to pay my taxi driver in the middle of the road as the entire bus is waiting on me. I run up the bus stairs wedging myself into the cramped seats with my cumbersome backpack and trekking poles, drawing stares from every soul aboard. The seat infant of me was practically only a few inches away from my face and the aisles were narrow enough I had to carry my pack above my head just to get to my seat (which was wet for whatever reason).

Luckily I know exactly where I’m going and after about 45 minutes on the bus, succesfully flagged down the bus driver to stop at the right spot. He only slows the bus down enough that I can jump out while its still moving! Once the dust settles I just sit there for a minute looking around thinking “well this is it”. I’m on the side of a mountain road finally by myself. All my time before in Nepal has at least been with other people to help me out. Now I’m out alone and just have to figure it out. A little nervous, this is when I’m ambushed.

What I first assumed was a nice villager directing me towards the start of the trail was actually a “Tibetan refugee” selling her wares (small knick knacks) so that she can feed her family. Well she got me, I bought her overpriced charm beads hoping that’ll set things straight, when the interaction catches the attention of 2 other refugees who approach me to buy their stuff too! Attracting a small crowd now, I apologize and book it to the trail head. I hope they pool together the money I gave the one lady, but being alone in an unfamiliar country unfortunately has me jumpier than I would've liked, especially with situations like that.

Well once I got to the trail head, the first day of hiking was actually quite easy, just 2.5 miles with 1300 feet of elevation gain, allowing me to get to my teahouse early in the day. I only encountered 1 other hiker coming down the other direction which was encouraging. Getting to the first teahouse, I was the ONLY guest which also means my room for the night was a thrifty $1.50.

Food is really where the tea houses make their money (they charge a ridiculous amount if you don’t order food from their kitchen), and its at a low enough altitude that there’s still chicken to eat!!! I was a little lonely eating by myself but at least there was wifi and I could check out the NFL highlights on my phone!

Day 2

Mistake #1, I skipped breakfast. Day 2 was a 7.5 mile long hike all the way up to the start of the ridgeline with 5500 feet in net elevation gain. I had just wanted to get out on the trail and start hiking instead of freezing while waiting for food as it was a brisk morning. Importantly, because it's the tail end of monsoon season in Nepal, it is still quite early in the hiking season and so many of the tea houses along the trail were closed. A few hours in with no teahouses yet and I feel like I’m hiking in molasses. The planned tea house for lunch wasn’t open and I ended up having to break into one of the emergency snickers I packed with me! I have never felt such an immediate rush of energy. It felt like being revived from the dead. I’m usually not active enough in my daily life to use up all the fuel in my body before lunchtime, but these long hiking days will push you. It was a great lesson to learn before the longer and more difficult Everest trek, but overall made for a miserable morning.

The majority of the hike is below the treeline which made for a very different environment then I expected when hiking in the Himalayas. It feels much more like a lush green tropical jungle, and even became a bit creepy when the fog crept in.

One of the fun parts of hiking in Asia is the prevalence of blood sucking leeches! Hiking the kumano kodo trail in Japan we had fellow hikers preaching about all the protections they took against them on the hike despite us not seeing a single leech. I had hoped this luck would continue in Nepal but alas it did not. After the first day with no incidents I was lulled into a false sense of security not knowing this day was bringing me through the danger zone…

I saw my first leech an hour into the hike when what looked like a piece of debris on the trail started to inch it way towards me and onto my boot. I quickly dispatched it and continued on the trail with plenty of false confidence. If that was the worst the leeches could do, I was not worried as I had donned my leech armor of hiking pants and a sun hoodie. Over the next hour or so I continued unperturbed as no leeches had found a chink in my armor (or so I thought).

I started to notice that the wrist strap of my hiking poles what itching a bit more than usual and even had a bit of sharp pain. During a water break I stopped to inspect the wrist strap only to find a leech gorging itself on my wrist! It had CLIMBED up my trekking poles in complete stealth towards the small gap of exposed skin. Thank goodness I found that leech because as looked over my trekking pole, there were 4 MORE all at various stages of progress of climbing up my trekking pole. I used a credit card to pry the leech off my wrist, but the leeches on the trekking poles were harder to dislodge. These suckers were glued to the poles, the best I could do was scrape them back down to the bottom of the poles.

And so I continued like this for the next 3 hours. Every 10 minutes or so I would have to check on the progress of the leeches climbing up my pole and knock them back down. I would occasionally get rid of a few, but another 10 minutes and they had been replaced by a fresh set of blood sucking climbers.

The worst part was the paranoia. Now any itch or scratch had me worried it was another bite. It got so bad that stopping at one of the small teahouses I was so convinced that leeches had climbed up my back, I approached some local porters for assistance. I had to take off my shirt as they inspected my back! Luckily this was just a figment of my imagination and was just friction against my backpack. It was a good excuse to talk to the porters with one of the younger ones speaking pretty good English. They showed me the best way to kill them via sharp rock and were impressed that I was doing the trip solo. It was nice to meet and chat with some of the locals instead of just the other tourists hiking through. These guys are hiking in flip flops with 50-100 pounds on their back and still speeding past me. I got to talk to the same porters a few times throughout the trek as we followed the same path up to the peak.

Eventually I clear the treeline and arrive at my teahouse for the night. Once again I am all alone at the tea house for the night. A little after sunset however, a Russian woman and her guide coming back down stop by the teahouse for dinner. We chatted a bit about the trail conditions up at the end of the hike as I heard people say that the final summit can be a bit dangerous. She reported to me that they made it up there that same morning though it was quite the struggle. With that cheery tip, she donated her leftovers to me and the two of them hiked down in the dark.

Day 3

It was a beautiful morning as I got my first view of Machupuchre. Generally in the Himalayas you want to hike early in the morning before the clouds move in, so while the previous nights I couldn’t see anything, I woke up to pristine crystal clear skies which was breathtaking seeing the Himalayas in their proper glory for the first time.

The hike that day was shorter but up there in altitude, ending just above 12000 feet at high camp. I took my time as recommended when acclimatizing at higher altitude, ate some breakfast, and, tried to do some bird photography to slow down my pace. At this point in the trek I’m starting to run into more people, some who crossed over from a separate trail, but also larger groups that are doing a more standardized hiking schedule. An important lesson I’d learned by this point is just by altering your schedule a bit off the main route, you can avoid a lot of the crowds. I was hiking between groups which gave me empty tea houses and trails the past two days not knowing just how many others were doing the same hike.

That day I kept running into a group of 2 women and their guide as I would pass them then inevitably take a break for photos and they would pass me, and so on. Eventually I started to chat with their guide, Bijay, who was a super nice guy. That night we ended up staying at the same teahouse and so we all got to chat with even more. The two women had met during their time in Nepal and hired the guide together, one was Chinese and the other Russian (An American, Chinese, and Russian walk into a teahouse....). The teahouses were a fun spot to chat and talk with people you normally would never! The Chinese woman turned out to be a professional photographer so we had lots to talk about and the guide was a pharmacist who was a guide in his free time. The russian was quite the character (as you'll read about later). I didn’t expect to be social on the trek but I found I enjoyed making new friends especially after 3 days of solo hiking.

With lots of extra time to spare before sunset, I decided to hike up a bit further on the trail to try and capture sunset. One of my favorite things in the mountains is to park myself at a beautiful viewpoint, wait for sunset, and just listen to some music. Just a quick 30 minute hike and there was no one else to be seen, just me and the mountains... until a Nepalese mountain dog shows up!

The mountain dogs of Madi Himal are part of the reason why I was initially drawn to the trek. The initial video that brought me to this trek, hiked alongside a mountain dog for 2 days at it lead him from camp to camp. While the mountain dog population has gotten under control and are now cared for by the teahouses, they still run up and down the trail getting pets and treats from various hikers. While filming a timelapse of the Fishtail mountan, I got a little visit from a mountain dog trying to lead me back to camp! He was a little confused as to why I was out there by myself!

Day 4

Summit day! The past few days of the hike I had been anxiously studying the weather hoping for good conditions for the push to the “summit” of the hike. Giddy with excitement, I woke up early 30 minutes before sunrise. What followed was one of my favorite moments of the whole time in Nepal. As I trekked out from high camp in the dark with my headlamp to guide the way and music to set the mood, I soon found myself on a empty ridgeline with stunning sunrise hues of pink, red, and orange lighting up the sky around the sacred mountain. As the sun rose higher above the mountains I was treated with rays of light strafing the landscape. Looking back I can see the expansive landscape that I've been hiking through these past few days.

The first hour of hiking was one of those beautiful moments of travel that become my cherished memories. When the conditions come together, and life doesn’t quite feel real.

While the reality of solo travel is that most of my time is spent planning or laying around, it all becomes worth it for moments like that. Tragically I lost most of my video footage (always check your sd cards before you reset them) from that trip, but you'll just have to imagine a clip of me looking like a kid on Christmas morning.

After 2 more hours of hiking I reach the lower viewpoint where most people terminate the hike, and the last 30 minutes is where I found all the other hikers that I missed in the morning. The trail started getting a bit busier with porters, and a few large groups. While taking a break at the viewpoint and eating my breakfast for the day (potato chips and a snickers), I was chatting with a local guide and telling him about my amazing morning with no other hikers. I told him that for a solid hour I wondered if I was the only hiker on the ridge because that's what it felt like! He immediately doubled over laughing and told me “You started way too late for the sunrise hikers and too early for the lazy hikers”. Instead of feeling like that lessened my picturesque morning experience I instead think what perfect luck that I was able to get most of the trail to myself!

Hiking is a beautiful thing and a great way to meet people because there is just no way that you can reach an amazing viewpoint after 3-4 days of hiking and not be in a great mood! As a result, hikers from all over the world were chatting, laughing, telling stories of their way up, and sharing food. I was able to get bargain some sunscreen from another guide, pet one of the mountain dogs, and trade some Pringles for another snickers. It was around this time that I saw a group of 20 something hikers and I had noticed one of them was wearing a backpack I thought I recognized. I looked through the photos on my camera and realized I had taken a picture of him overlooking the valley! When I introduced myself, him and his friends were amazed, and I got his contact info to send the photo (I completely forgot about it and didn’t send it until 10 weeks later but he was still super excited about it). It’s really fun to be able to capture photos for people in such cool locations and the highlight of their trips. I get a lot of satisfaction (and a big ego bump), when they get so excited to get photos.

As I’m chatting with one of the guides and telling him that I wanted to get to the summit, he suddenly perks up and is says “dude the mist is coming in you better get there fast”. I immediately throw my pack on and start on the final leg of the trail. I knew foggy conditions and/or rain would block any of the views but more importantly make the route more dangerous. So I set off at a brisk walk hoping to reach the top. It feels like a race against the fog as I see it slowly and insidiously creeping up onto the ridgeline. The trail is far less dangerous than I was warned about mainly due to the lack of snow, I would never risk it in snow and ice, but with firm and clear dirt trails, it felt quite safe.

It took one more hour of hiking before I finally reach the summit! The summit in this case is just a little sign that says “Mardi Himal Base Camp” with a bench or two. As a ridgeline hike, the trail makers decided that this was about as far as it should go when they felt like it.

Disappointingly the summit was completely blocked with fog, and even with clearer conditions, it has worse views than the lower viewpoint, there was only one other hiker with me, a Taiwanese hiker named Leo. He had been hiking in Nepal for a few months, hitting most of the big trails and was happy to share his tips and stories. He did a good job on selling me on visiting Taiwan (which I will visited in February off of his recommendations). 30 minutes into our chatting and I get up to photograph a nearby raven, and thats when it hits me: my first bout of altitude sickness. I hadn’t noticed it before laying down, but I quickly develop a gnarly headache and feel quite weak. In the span of just a few minutes, the hike goes from pleasant fun to “alright it’s time to get the heck off this mountain”.

My new Taiwanese friend and I descended back down the trail, going about as fast as I can to back down in altitude. What was a fun challenge on the way up, now feels like a hostile landscape, I’m very glad that I wasn’t alone for that stretch, We only stopped once to get questioned by the same guide I chatted with earlier about a hiker who had gone up and was missing (I’'m pretty sure he was found but we never saw him). We finally arrive back to the lower viewpoint where I bid farewell to him, thank him, and promise to send him the photos I took of him.

Feeling slightly better I slowly made it back down to high camp where I had spent the night. My initial plan for they day was an early summit push, break at high camp for lunch, then hike a few more hours down to make the the next day easier. Stopping for lunch I get a hearty meal of vegetable fried rice and garlic soup (sherpas SWEAR it works best for warding off altitude sickness). I see my new hiker riends from earlier and even though they only got up to the lower viewpoint, they don’t feel great either. Their guide suggests that we instead just rest up here for the day, then head down the next morning together which I am only too happy to agree to. I promptly take a 2 hour nap and wake up feeling much better. That evening our newly formed hiking group spent the evening hanging out, chatting, and taking photos as the stars come out.

While waiting for dinner to be made, the Russian who lives fulltime in Bali decides to start doing her breath work in the tea house. I’m over in the corner reading my book with a hot chocolate minding my own business when I hear “HUGH HUGH HUGH HUGH” loud enough to overwhelm my noise cancelling earbuds. I never knew breathwork could be that loud and disruptive as it went on every 15 seconds for about 10 MINUTES. Always meeting colorful characters I guess.

Talking with the guide, he gives me tons of recommendations for my 3 passes trek, offers to take me out in Kathmandu when I get back, and an offer that if I’m ever hiking in Nepal again, he’ll take me on a trek for free if I agree to take photos. Funny how my solo trek ended up in making new friends! 

Day 5

Our newly minted hiking group woke up early around 6 am ready to backtrack the ridge line down to low camp, then take an off shoot route straight down the side of the ridge to Sidhing where we can take a jeep. On the map its about 7ish miles total and an elevation loss of around 7000 feet. I thought this would be an easier day but every guide I talked to told me to expect 6 hours which I couldn't believe!  I was expecting closer to 4 hours, I guess those "guides" don't know that I'm built different.

While it was nice to have a group, it now meant I had to hike at their pace which was a fair bit slower, and included a looooong lunch stop. I love hiking, but regardless of the trip, the last day of hiking I ALWAYS just want to get back down to civilization (and a shower for the first time in 5 days). Looking at the pace of the group, reality sets in that this will indeed be a 6 hour day. The last 2 miles I finally got frustrated enough with the slow pace and make the guide a bet that what he says is the last 90 minutes I can do in 50. Feeling super powered by the lower altitudes I trail run down to the end destination, with my big pack bouncing on my back the whole time. In yet another change of climate, it was a hot dusty trek down with the bright sun bearing down on my the whole time. Just 6 hours previously I was budled up in layers of clothes, and now I was sweating buckets in my tshirt and shorts!

The end destination of the trek is just a hotel in the nearby town where jeep drivers gather to drive weary hikers back to Pokhara. We knew in advance that the each jeep ride is a flat rate. Hikers normally wait at the stop and then form groups with each van. Arriving to the hotel before anyone else in my group I'm immediately approached by these hikers to join their groups, feels like forming teams in recess. As my group filters in, we found two other Chinese hikers to fully book our jeep for what would end up being the sketchiest car ride I have ever taken.

Its a two hour drive back to Pokhara with some of the wildest "roads" I've ever seen. The 4 wheel jeep is a necessity as we traverse ridiculous inclines, declines, and potholes that have us all fllying around inside the cab. Its hard to put into words but lets just say in that car ride our vehicle was put at angles I have NEVER experienced before.

Once we get back onto the main roads, we were able to cruise the last hour back to the city where my journey finally came to an end. I said bye to all my new friends and checked back into my hostel. I again "balled" out with my own private room with air conditioning and a planned 2 days of doing absolutely nothing before taking a bus back to Kathmandu to start the real trek: Everest.

Little did I know in those two days I was going to make a vital misstep which almost derailed the whole trek...