Word: trailhead
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...required three permits. But even if it wasn't illegal, wandering alone is a brow-furrowing prospect, for trails quickly extend beyond the reach of telephones. Dialing air rescue in emergencies is not an option, which is why, by the time we started, staff outnumbered clients. At the Yuksom trailhead, Samten Bhutia, our guide, hired the cook, a cook's helper, two dzos (hirsute offspring of yaks and cows), and a herder to manage the beasts and their burdens...
...inspire confidence. When I finally arrive at the end of the road in the picturesque ethnic-Tibetan town of Xidan, where the trail to the isolated Yubeng Valley (and village) starts, I'm expecting tranquillity. Instead, there's a phalanx of bulldozers clawing at the hilly approach to the trailhead. "As you can see, we're opening up to tourism," says Ga Te, a young official from the local tourism bureau. "Soon we'll have a parking lot. For now, though, we'll have to settle for mules...
...Many hikers in Nepal opt to join a group tour, but I wanted some individual freedom. In Kathmandu I hired a guide, Kamal Bhatta, and he obtained my trekking permit, hired a porter and arranged transport to the trailhead, which took six hours to reach. Once on the trail, I could hike at my own pace and choose where I wanted to sleep, which was usually the place with the best apple pie. The Annapurna circuit's nickname, in fact, is the "Apple Pie Trail," in homage to the local specialty and the easy trek...
...descent is much harder than the ascent, but you don't know that yet. The novice hiker is leg weary as you near the cottonwood trees of the first oasis, 3,000 ft. below the rim. It's much hotter here than at the trailhead, and you flop down in the shade and briefly commune with Kit Carson and Charles Lindbergh and Sir Edmund Hillary and wonder, "Can I make it back up?" The answer is yes. Absolutely...