Highlights: Upper Sinuwa · Kuldighar · Bamboo · Dovan · Hinku Cave · Himalaya teahouses · treeline · waterfalls on both walls · Deurali

On Day 2 you trek from Lower Sinuwa to Deurali at 3,230 m in six to seven hours, passing Bamboo, Dovan and the Himalaya teahouses through dense bamboo and rhododendron forest. This is the longest climbing day of the trip at close to 900 m of net gain, and your guide paces it deliberately from the first hour rather than saving the caution for the end. We build in a proper sitting lunch at Dovan or Himalaya depending on how the morning has gone, and we stop for tea roughly every ninety minutes whether anyone has asked for it or not.

The forest through here is the best of the lower route. Bamboo stands close over the trail, the Modi Khola runs loud below you on the right, and langur monkeys move through the canopy often enough that you will probably see them. Past Dovan the valley narrows and steepens, waterfalls appear on both walls, and the overhang at Hinku Cave marks the point where the trek starts to feel serious. Above Himalaya the forest thins quickly and then gives up altogether, and you walk the last hour into Deurali between rock walls with the peaks growing above them.

Deurali loses the sun early because of those walls, so it is colder than 3,230 m suggests. Change into dry warm layers the moment you arrive rather than sitting around in a damp base layer, and get your down jacket out of the duffel tonight because it stays within reach until you come back down. Your guide runs the first oximeter check this evening. We are not looking for a magic number, we are establishing your baseline so that tomorrow evening's reading means something.

Good to know: Start drinking at breakfast rather than trying to catch up in the afternoon, and aim for three to four litres across the day. Plain water gets unappealing as you gain height, so bring electrolyte sachets from home. They weigh nothing and they are the difference between drinking enough and drinking as much as you can face.

Highlights: early start · avalanche-aware section in morning conditions · mouth of the Annapurna Sanctuary · Machhapuchhre Base Camp · sanctuary basin · Annapurna I · sunset and sunrise from the teahouse door

On Day 3 you trek from Deurali to Annapurna Base Camp at 4,130 m in five to six hours, passing Machhapuchhre Base Camp and entering the Annapurna Sanctuary. This is the fastest altitude-gain day of the itinerary and we will be straightforward with you about it: 900 m of sleeping-height gain in one day sits above what altitude medicine recommends as a comfortable increase. It is manageable for most trekkers with recent hill fitness, and it is the price of doing two base camps in nine days. Your guide checks everyone with the oximeter at MBC, again on arrival, and again in the evening, and keeps the pace above MBC deliberately slow.

We start early for a specific reason. The section between Deurali and MBC passes below slopes that carry avalanche risk in certain snow conditions, and morning is when those slopes are coldest and most stable. Your guide checks conditions the evening before with lodge owners and descending trekkers and sets the departure time accordingly. If the assessment says wait, we wait. Above MBC the valley opens into the sanctuary proper, the gorge you have been climbing for two days simply ends, and the ring of peaks closes around you.

The reward is sleeping inside the amphitheatre itself. Annapurna I at 8,091 m stands at the head of the glacier, the tenth-highest mountain on Earth and the first eight thousand metre peak ever climbed. Annapurna South, Hiunchuli and Machhapuchhre complete the circle, and you get both sunset and sunrise on all of it from your teahouse door. Cloud usually rolls in by early afternoon and clears again before dusk. Spend the afternoon indoors drinking hot fluids rather than exploring, eat more than you feel like, and go to bed early. Broken sleep at 4,130 m is normal rather than a warning sign.

Good to know: Sleep with tomorrow's socks, base layer and camera batteries inside your sleeping bag. Anything left out in an ABC room will be near freezing by morning, and lithium batteries lose most of their charge in the cold, which is a poor way to arrive at the best sunrise of the trip.

Note: If anyone in the group is not right at MBC, we stop at MBC. It is a two hour walk to base camp and it will still be there in the morning, and the itinerary has enough slack that one night at 3,700 m instead of 4,130 m costs you nothing except an earlier start on Day 4. Your guide makes this call on the oximeter and on how you look, not on how you say you feel.

Highlights: sunrise on Annapurna I · memorial cairns · sanctuary gates · Machhapuchhre Base Camp · Deurali · Himalaya · Dovan · return of the treeline · Bamboo

On Day 4 you descend from Annapurna Base Camp to Bamboo at 2,310 m in five to six hours, dropping more than 1,800 m back through the sanctuary gates and into the forest. Sunrise comes first. The light starts on Annapurna I and works down the ring as it drops, and we let you watch it properly and eat breakfast indoors afterwards rather than having you packed and walking by seven. You get one morning at Annapurna Base Camp and it should not be spent watching a departure time.

After that the walking is all downhill, hard on the knees and easy on the lungs. Every hour the air gets noticeably richer, appetite comes back, any headache from last night lifts, and the effort of the climb turns into something you did rather than something you are doing. Trekking poles earn their place today more than on any other day of the trek. The honest statistic on this route is that more injuries happen going down than going up, so we shorten stride on the steep sections, keep a slight bend in the knee rather than locking it out, and take the loose ground one step at a time instead of in a flow. Your guide walks behind the group today rather than in front.

Bamboo in the afternoon is a genuinely pleasant place to arrive: a small cluster of lodges in a forest clearing, warm, loud with birdsong and water, and low enough that everyone sleeps properly again. There is time to wash socks, charge batteries and sit outside with tea while the light comes down through the trees. The hardest altitude of the trek is now behind you, and tomorrow is the easiest day on the schedule.

Good to know: Loosen your bootlaces slightly at the ankle and tighten them across the top of the foot before you leave base camp. It stops your toes sliding forward into the toe box on a long descent, which is what causes bruised toenails and the blisters that turn up two days later.

Highlights: Kuldighar · climb to Sinuwa · Chhomrong Khola bridge · Chhomrong staircase · descent to Jhinu Danda · natural hot spring pools on the Modi Khola

On Day 5 you trek from Bamboo down to Jhinu Danda at 1,780 m in four to five hours and spend the afternoon in the natural hot springs beside the Modi Khola. One piece of honesty about the morning first: the net elevation change is downhill, but between Bamboo and Chhomrong you climb back up to Sinuwa, drop to the suspension bridge, and then face the long stone staircase up into Chhomrong. It is the same staircase you came down on Day 1 and it is considerably longer going up. We set off early so there is no clock on it and take it in short segments of twenty or thirty steps with a genuine pause between them, not a march with a rest at the top. Everyone gets up it. Nobody gets up it quickly.

From Chhomrong the trail drops steadily to Jhinu Danda and you are usually there by early afternoon, which is the whole point of the day. The hot springs are three stone-built pools on the bank of the Modi Khola, fed by natural mineral water, about twenty minutes on foot below the village down a steep path. Warm water, the sound of the river, and four days of walking dissolving out of your legs. Almost every guest names this their favourite day of the trek, and it is not just sentiment. Heat and buoyancy do genuine work on stiff joints and tired quadriceps, and people who soak here properly walk noticeably better tomorrow.

That matters more on this itinerary than on a standard ABC trek, because tomorrow is not the end. This is the recovery day built into the hinge of the route, the point where the Annapurna half closes and the Mardi half begins. Your legs get exactly what they need before you cross the valley and start climbing again. Eat well tonight, sleep long, and repack properly, because Day 6 is a long one.

Good to know: Bring a swimsuit and a quick-dry towel, and walk down in sandals or camp shoes rather than boots, since the path to the pools is steep and often wet. Do not stay in more than about twenty minutes at a stretch and drink water while you soak. Hot mineral pools dehydrate you faster than you would expect.

Note: In heavy rain the Modi Khola rises and the lower pools can be closed or submerged, and after a serious monsoon flood they occasionally stay shut for a season. Your guide will know the current state before you leave Bamboo. If the springs are out, we still finish at Jhinu early and it becomes a long, well-earned afternoon of doing nothing at all.

Highlights: New Bridge · Modi Khola crossing · Landruk terraces · Tolka · Pitam Deurali ridge junction · oak and rhododendron forest · Forest Camp (Kokar)

On Day 6 you cross the valley from Jhinu Danda through Landruk and climb to Forest Camp at 2,550 m in six to seven hours, leaving the ABC trail behind and joining the quiet Mardi Himal route. The morning descends to the river and crosses at New Bridge, then climbs the far side into Landruk, a Gurung village stepped into terraces with the whole Modi Khola valley opening behind you as you go. Look back from here and you can trace most of the last five days in a single view, which is a good way to understand what you have already done.

From Landruk the climb is steady, long and mostly forested, up through Tolka to the ridge junction near Pitam Deurali and then onto the Mardi trail itself. The change is immediate and it is the reason we route the trek this way. Crowds thin out within the first hour, the wide stone-stepped highway of the ABC route gives way to a narrow earth path through oak and rhododendron, and you go from passing a hundred trekkers a day to passing a handful. Forest Camp, known locally as Kokar, is a small line of lodges in dense forest on the ridge with no view at all, which surprises people until they realise the ridge saves everything for tomorrow.

This is a long day and we do not disguise it. It comes right after the recovery day for exactly that reason. Your guide will pace the Landruk climb conservatively and there is a good lunch stop at Tolka or Deurali depending on how the group is moving. By evening you are on the ridge system with a completely different trek ahead of you: no gorge, no river noise, no crowds, and a walk along an open spine instead of up a valley floor.

Good to know: Forest Camp has limited lodges and no road access of any kind, and in peak season in October and April it fills. We book ahead, but if you are walking as a small group ask your guide to send word up the trail from Landruk at lunch. Mobile coverage is patchy on this ridge and lodge owners still run on messages passed by porters.

Highlights: Rest Camp · Low Camp · treeline · Badal Danda meadows · open Mardi ridge · Machhapuchhre north face · Mardi Himal · High Camp

On Day 7 you climb from Forest Camp past Badal Danda to High Camp at 3,550 m in five to six hours, breaking above the treeline onto the open Mardi ridge. The first two hours stay in forest through Rest Camp to Low Camp, and then, quite abruptly, the trees stop. What replaces them is the reason people come here. The trail runs along a narrow open spine with the Mardi Khola valley falling away on one side and the Modi Khola on the other, rhododendron scrub giving way to grass and then to bare ridge, and Machhapuchhre standing directly ahead of you at 6,993 m instead of somewhere above you. You walk with mountains on both sides for the rest of the day.

Badal Danda, roughly the halfway point, means cloud hill, and it earns the name. Morning is reliably the clearest window on this ridge, so we start early and take the pictures when we have them rather than assuming the afternoon will be better. It usually is not. From Badal Danda the climb to High Camp is steeper and more exposed, with a few short sections where the path narrows and the drop on either side becomes obvious. It is not technical and there is nothing to scramble, but it is a place to keep your attention on your feet.

Here is where the shape of this itinerary pays you back. Because you slept at 4,130 m four nights ago, arriving at 3,550 m feels comfortable in a way it never does for trekkers coming straight up from Pokhara on a standalone Mardi trek. Those groups are typically at High Camp on their third day out with no altitude history at all, and it shows in the dining room. You will notice you are breathing easily, eating normally, and sleeping while other people are not. That is the acclimatization you banked at Annapurna Base Camp, and it is the strongest single argument for combining these two treks rather than doing either alone.

Good to know: High Camp is exposed and the wind gets up in the afternoon, so this is a windproof shell day rather than a fleece day. Water is carried up to these lodges and is charged accordingly, so fill up at Low Camp where it is cheaper and treat it yourself rather than buying bottled on the ridge.

Highlights: pre-dawn start · Upper Viewpoint · Mardi Himal Base Camp · Mardi Himal at 5,587 m · Machhapuchhre north face · the full Annapurna wall · return through High Camp · Badal Danda · Low Camp

On Day 8 you start before sunrise, hike to Mardi Himal Base Camp at around 4,500 m, and descend all the way to Low Camp at 3,150 m, covering seven to nine hours in the biggest day of the trip. Head torches on at four thirty or five, depending on the season and the group. We start in the dark for the same reason we start early every day on this ridge: the Mardi views belong to the morning, and by ten or eleven the cloud comes up the valley and closes the whole thing down.

The climb from High Camp runs first to the Upper Viewpoint at around 3,900 m, which is where many trekkers on shorter itineraries turn around, and then continues on a rougher, thinner trail across open ground to base camp itself. This is the highest point of the entire combined trek and the view repays every step: Mardi Himal at 5,587 m directly ahead, Machhapuchhre filling the sky so close that it stops reading as a mountain and starts reading as a wall, and beyond it the full sweep of the Annapurna range you stood beneath five days earlier. Being able to pick out Annapurna South and Hiunchuli and know you slept under them is the moment this itinerary justifies itself.

Then we go down, and we go down a long way. Back through High Camp for a proper meal, then the ridge descent through Badal Danda to Low Camp at 3,150 m. It is a big day and the last three hours are on tired legs, so poles out and pace deliberate. Sleeping low tonight after touching 4,500 m is exactly what your body wants, and it is why we do not stop at High Camp on the way back down. You will sleep hard at Low Camp.

Good to know: It will be well below freezing at the start and warm enough for a base layer by mid-morning, so dress for shedding and keep the layers accessible. Gloves, a warm hat and category 3 or 4 sunglasses are mandatory rather than optional. Glare off snow at 4,500 m burns you through cloud, and the underside of the nose and chin is where people get caught.

Highlights: Forest Camp · Pitam Deurali · Pothana · Australian Camp option · Kande road head · drive to Pokhara · trek ends

On Day 9 you descend from Low Camp through Forest Camp, Pitam Deurali and Pothana to Kande in five to six hours, then drive about an hour and a half back to Pokhara. The morning drops back into the forest almost immediately and stays there for most of the descent, which after two days on an open ridge is a pleasant change: shade, birdsong, and the smell of wet earth again. Below Pitam Deurali the trail widens, the villages start, and by Pothana you are walking past working farms with the Annapurnas over your shoulder.

Kande sits on the Pokhara to Baglung highway and the transition is abrupt in the way trek endings always are. One moment you are on a trail and the next you are in a jeep with tarmac under you. This is where the porters and any assistant guides leave the group and head for their own villages, so it is the natural moment to thank them properly rather than doing it hurriedly in a hotel car park. The drive to Pokhara takes about ninety minutes and puts you at the hotel by mid to late afternoon, which leaves time for the thing everyone wants first: a long hot shower and a change into clothes that have not been in a duffel for nine days.

You finish the loop having entered the mountains at Jhinu Danda and exited at Kande, with two base camps behind you and not a single repeated trail section. That is unusual on this side of the Annapurnas, where most itineraries walk out the way they walked in, and it is the main reason we build the combination in this direction rather than doing Mardi first. Your guide hands over your trekking certificate at the hotel with your name and the dates you stood at both base camps, and the evening is yours. The lakeside is a ten minute walk away and there is no better place in Nepal to sit still with tired legs.

Good to know: Tipping for the guide and porters is customary and is best handled as a group in a single envelope at Kande, before the crew disperses at the road head. Your guide will never raise it, so ask the office at any point during the trek and we will tell you honestly what the usual range is for a group your size.