Annapurna circiut

31.05.12 ANNAPURNA WALK.

Once more we had a member of the club address a meeting. On this occasion it was the fifth Wednesday when we are joined by our partners and  had an evening meal.

Our speaker was Gordon Boulter who with his wife had travelled to Nepal for the Annapurna circuit.This is one of the top ten walks in the world.To put  it into context there are 500 people at the Everest base camp every day! And on this walk there were 50 to 100.The trip was to take 22 days.

We started with a quick geography lesson to locate Annapurna in Nepal and in relation to India and China.There are four high peaks in this area with the highest being 8,000 metres.Being  resourceful people they travelled into Grimsby on the bus (using a bus pass)and then by train to Manchester.Once in Nepal they checked out the guides, porters and price before making their choice and off loaded their baggage.

One early glitch was the Di developed a sprain in both ankles in Kathmandu!Fortunately she had recovered within four days and was able to set off on the walk.The slides depicted rocky pathways, which seem to have been cut into the hillside,rope type bridges over gorges but no snow.As they climbed higher it became colder but there were frequent stop offs for refreshing cups of tea.The highest point was 5,400 metres.(they had medicated for altitude sickness).

Gordon showed a picture of one of the highest peaks and told us that there frequent casualties when climbing.

President Nigel thanked Gordon for his talk and said that he did not think that the walking weekend would be in Nepal. Gordon informed us that they are looking at the next challenging walk.