Trekking in Nepal round Manaslu General information This travellogue is about one of Nepal’s most beautiful treks, on this page you can find some general information . Most of the pictures a just shown in a small sizze. Klick into the upper left corner to see them in 750 Pixel width and the lower right corner for 1050 Pixel.
Round Manaslu Normaly this is a regular 2,5 -3 week trek, where you end in Besisahar of the Annapurna round trek. With my friends we continued to manang, crossed the thorong la an walked till Beni. it took us 32 days.
The Manalsu massif lies around 100 km west of Kathmandu between the Ganesh and Annapurnamassif. In the beginning one is driving beside the Trisuli River in the direction of Pokhara. There are two starting points for the round manaslu trek: Gorkha or Arughat Bazar. Some travel companies take the route from Gorkha over the Rupina La with wonderful sights obver the Ganesh himal. But this means several days with tents and your own food so we choose the route from Arughat along the Buddhi Gandaki. As there are just a very few an very basic Lodges we also had to bring tents and food with us. Permits: Trekking permit: For the Manaslu you need a special atrekking permit which cost 90 USD per week and person. You will need two weeks so it costs in total 180 USD. you must go throught an registered trekking agency and be at least two persons. Manaslu Conservation Area Permit: Like in the annapurna area there ist the Manaslu conservation Area Project MCAP and you must get a permit from them as well for 2000 Rupies Maoistensteuer: Gorkha area is a maoist stronghold. We were warned that the “donation2 could be as hight as 200 USD. Fortunately we didn’t met any of them so we could spend the money drinking beer with many toast to the invisible maoists. After the maoist are in the governement now, athere should not be any donation anymore. Checkpoints: In theory there are checkposts in Gorkha, Arughat ,Jagat and Dharapani. When we trekked in the after season, there was noone at all. The checkpost of Jagat was blasted 3 years ago by maoists. The checkpost have been rebuilt meanwhile. Is it possible to do Manaslu Round without tents ? To get the permit, you are supposed to go throught an agency which will organise porters, tents and a Kitchen crew. And on the MC you will find many camping grounds. When we trekked in 2005 we stayed already often in little lodges and could get regulary dals bhat or noodles. We had 25 liters of kerosine and plenty of food with us, which appeared to be not necessary, as we could have bought it on the way. In athe last years, many new lodges have been build so that MC starts to be feasable without a tent. Only the last camp in Daramsala just befor larkya la has just a shelter with no windows or doors. The german Marc S. evern succeded to get a official permit by an agency without a guide or any porters and could do the whole circuit without a tent. But dont expect lodges like on the Annapurna circuit. Often it’s just a private house where you get some basic food and can slep on the smokie first floor on basic beds with no matrasses. Conclusion: For trekkers who like a very basic stile, the manaslu trek is feasable without a tent. But you will utterly need a own matrass and a good sleeping bag. It is rather probable that in the peak season lodges will be often completely full. For this reason I would still carry my own little tent. I still thing that for this trek a guide and a porter are to recomend. But one can organise this trek as a basic teahouse trek with very few camoping days, when necessary. Overview over lodges and teahouses (2008)
If you have newer informations about the lodges on MC please send me a email to
Photos: the pictures of the manaslu pages are from me and my friends. You can see the respective autor in the filename of the photo: HH = Hans Henninger, HPS = Hans-Peter Stupp, MJ = Manfred Jeckel und AdR = Andrées de Ruiter For the search engines, Trekking in Nepal, A travelogue of the manaslu trek, Round manaslu, Pictures of manaslu trekking, Photos of manaslu trek , Trekking in Nepal - round manaslu .
|