Over The Top - Annapurna Base Camp (Winter)

We were the only people watching the last fiery rays of the sun sliding off the distinctive whale-tail peak of Macchapucchre. Here at Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), freezing in sub-zero temperatures, were just twenty trekkers.

Later, the night sky hosted a brilliant tapestry of stars, so numerous that they cast a dim light on the peaks of the mountains surrounding the camp. I was looking at the Milky Way, which appeared as a faint cloud covering about a third of the sky, when a meteor streaked across the sky.

This was by far the most beautiful place I had been. But getting here took seven days of hard walking, and there was another four days to the end of the trek. Why spend nearly two weeks of my holiday, just walking?

Started from the bottom

My selfie-obsessed friends might have piqued my interest, uploading photographs of holidays in Bhutan, Mongolia, and unpronounceable Scandinavian towns where the Northern Lights paint their gleeful faces a ghostly green. "I'm so nature, y'all!" is their undeniable message.

I was one of these adventure seekers, hopping on a plane to Nepal in early February, the mountains on my mind.

A tiny fraction of the Annapurna Range. Annapurna South in the centre, and the distinctive “whale tail” peak of Macchapucchre to the right.

Local friends encouraged me to make the eleven-day round trip to ABC, which is famed for sweeping views and challenging terrain.

My journey began in Pokhara, a lakeside town full of adventure tourists dressed in oversized hemp cloaks, their dreadlocks reeking of marijuana. I was standing here on the morning of the trek, observing the distant peaks of Annapurna I and Annapurna South, and feeling a little bit like Bilbo Baggins, his hairy feet twitching as he looked with trepidation at Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.

While the Annapurna Range is free of fire-breathing dragons, forty-three people still lost their lives here during an unseasonal snowstorm last October. My party of three was well prepared for wintry conditions, but the distance to ABC seemed insurmountable by foot.

Our guide, Diwan, assured us that eleven days was enough. We would walk about seven hours each day, with ample time to shake off the exhaustion and take in the beauty of Nepal's hills.

Now we here

The trailhead was at Nayapul, a bustling town filled with donkeys. These beasts were heading uphill, their sacks overflowing with all manner of supplies - chocolate bars, toothpaste, and of course, cigarettes - mostly for tourists like myself.

We were climbing, slowly, from the sun-drenched lower hills to the town of Ghorepani, at about 2,850m - a vertical increase of some 1,500m in two days. For some perspective, summiting our much-celebrated Bukit Timah Hill, at a whopping 163.3m, takes about thirty minutes.

After passing through at least three villages, stopping thrice for tea, lunch, and dinner, the menus begin to look the same. While the western options are palatable (mushy spaghetti or sandwiches), the most popular dish is Dhal Bhaat, a Nepalese institution. I had this simple meal of rice, watery dhal, and potatoes fried with vegetables, at least twenty times – and I enjoyed each one thoroughly.

At 150Rs ($2) for a simple room (bed, pillow, blanket, and basic insulation from the cold), and about 1500Rs ($20) for day's worth of food, a trekker could easily spend two weeks in the hills for about $300.

The reward for a punishing two days climb was sunrise on the third morning, at the top of Poon Hill (3,210m). From this vista, the entire Annapurna range was directly in front of us, falling away to the east, the furthest point marked by the peak of Macchapucchre.

Overjoyed trekkers at the summit of Poon Hill

There were hundreds of tourists on this tiny hillside, but thankfully most of them turned back to Pokhara after Poon Hill. Going up to ABC were seven small groups, and the trail became blissfully quiet.

The landscape was changing dramatically as we went higher. While the lower hills were verdant and filled with twittering birds, the trails above 3,000m were silent, swathed in snow and ice.

Snow and ice

By this stage we had been walking uphill for six days, and my thighs were burning with each step. The pain focused my thoughts, and I was meditative during the long stretches of walking – no phone or friends to distract me as I counted my steps and observed my own breathing.

We spent our sixth night at Deurali, a frozen outpost at 3,100m. Several groups were huddled together in the dining room, fingers prodding at maps as they planned the final approach to ABC the next morning.

Diwan promised us that the climb would take four or five hours. The guides make these estimates from experience, and while they’re usually right, four hours sounded unlikely.

We were making great time the next day, speeding through the Bagar Valley at mid-morning. I took a moment to dip my hand in the Modi Khola, a small river that runs down the valley. The oddly soapy waters were gentle here, but further down it would gain momentum and eventually supply hundreds of millions of people when it eventually joins the mighty Ganges, in India.

The valley goes straight into the foothills of the mountains of Gangapurna, but we took a sharp left, uphill, towards Macchapucchre Base Camp at 3,700m. Laundry was flapping violently in the strong wind, and I wanted to push on before the sun rose any higher.

The sun, while comforting, starts to melt the snow from about mid-morning to late afternoon. It was already noon when we began our ascent to ABC – a long, gradual ascent, entirely covered by melting snow.

The long, terrible slog up the Annapurna Sanctuary towards ABC.

Just half an hour in, I felt utterly exhausted. I was constantly slipping on slush, or worse, sinking thigh deep into the snow every few steps. Guides around us were still wearing cheery grins, but my fixed smile was as fake as the ‘Nort Face’ jackets on sale in the towns.

The blue-roofed lodges of ABC were visible nearly the entire time, a little speck in the distance that didn’t seem to grow any larger. But while gasping for air during breaks, I found myself gasping at the scenery as well. Hiunchuli, Annapurna South, and Annapurna I were looming in front of me, while behind, Macchapuchcchre filled half the sky.

At 2pm, I passed the “Namaste” sign that marks the grounds of ABC, so absorbed in my footsteps that I was barely aware of its presence. There were no wild celebrations here – after all, this wasn’t mountain climbing – but we still exchanged hi-fives with the other groups and wolfed down our carb-heavy lunch of dhal bhaat.

Comfortable in the lodge at 4,130m, I sat facing the mountains, rubbing my sore thighs and wondering whether I could do another four days of this.

And then, silently, a massive sheet of snow slid off the face of Annapurna I. The avalanche took all of five seconds, but in those breathtaking moments I knew that when I came back again, I’d be doing at least sixteen days.