Mardi Himal Trekking

The Mardi Himal Trek is a newly opened route and hidden treasure in the Annapurna region. This trek is the best destination to avoid the crowd. Mardi Himal trek offers imaging view of Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Machhapuchre and Manaslu ranges. Mardi Himal base camp, Jhinu Hot Spring and Ghandruk village is the major attraction of this trek.

The trek starts at Kande after 1 hour driving from Pokhara. The trail is good, first slowly up, then a bit steeper to Australian Camp (2060m – About one hour), then after that slightly downhill to Pothana (1950m) then up again to Deurali (2100m). There is a right turn in Deurali signposted “Forest Camp” the trail is through jungle, at first up then undulating on the top of a ridge, there is a section just over half way where the trail drops steeply and then slowly gains height and then back onto the ridge and into Forest Camp (2600m). The trail is initially quite steep leaving Forest Camp but soon gets less steep as you again get up on the ridge. The trail leaves Low Camp again in a jungle, but the trees soon start to get smaller and after about one hours trekking broke out of the jungle and onto the open ridge with spectacular views of Machhapuchhre ahead and Annapurna South to my left. It is possible to continue trekking along the ridge for another 4 to 5 hours to Mardi Himal Base Camp (4500m) and return to High Camp in around 4 hours – This makes a long day but there is also a viewpoint about halfway, the imaging view can be from here. After that, we return all the way down to Deurali. When we arrive at Deurali, we trek to Jhinu Hot spring where you can explore at natural hot spring via Tolka. After this, you will end your trek at Nayapul via Ghandruk village which is one of the popular Gurung villages in this region.