How to Hike the Mardi Himal Trail in Nepal

okay hello Greg Adams here just got back from the Paul I'm in Brooklyn right now this is gonna be a video guide explaining everything you need to know to go do the trek that I just did the Marty a mall in Nepal if you haven't seen it I made a silent hiking film which is the thing that I do now on my channel it's kind of a spoiler for the hike it's my experience start-to-finish what it was like hiking it makes sense to watch that before this but I'm basically going to explain everything you need to know getting to the trailhead permits what to bring how expensive the trek is and I dated I ate in ireri of what I did and yes I'm going to talk about the white dog everybody leaving comments demanding answers about how I met the white dog why the dog was following me why I didn't take it home we'll get to that it was only my first time in Nepal and I had actually gone to the annapurna region to hike the annapurna circuit which is a much longer much different trek but there was actually a tragic Avalanche that happened like a week or two before I arrived and they closed the pass so it just wasn't an option to hike that trail luckily in my research I found the Mardy Amal Trek and from what I saw you know it's probably one of the best short tracks in Nepal in the annapurna region and by short trek I mean probably under seven days I did it in three if I wanted to I probably could have done it in two if I wasn't you know making a video throughout the entire experience I would probably try the trail run as much as I can I think that would be fun but hey you could stretch this trail out you know spend a whole week up on the mountain and let me tell you it's a ridge hike which is one of the best because you get constant views on both sides and as you go up the ridge you're approaching this really steep peak called fishtail mountain because it kind of looks like a fishtail left and right you have these beautiful snow-capped mountains especially once you get out of the forest into the Alpine zone it's just views for days and I think this trail is going to get real popular especially once the International Airport in the city nearby is finished it's gonna be a lot more people hiking and I just think it's I didn't know about this hike before I went to Nepal so you should definitely go do it before it gets too popular I think this trail is for a lot of different types of people you're going to have that Ridgeline and those views so if you're a photographer that's that's wonderful but the tea houses really make this trail accessible for anyone starting out because they're taking care of your food and where you sleep you can lighten your pack a lot by not carrying food and cooking stuff and a tent Nepal in general compared to the US and especially Brooklyn is very cheap the food is probably going to be the most expensive thing that you're going to buy on this hike but I didn't spend too much I'm gonna go through exactly what I spent in a breakdown of total costs in a little bit to be honest hiking in general is a pretty cheap thing you know you can spend a lot of money balling out in the cities but once you get out of the cities into nature things are typically cheap for most of this hike you're going up and things get a little steep towards the end and if you're not used to altitude this will give you a taste of it you're going above 14,000 feet which is about what you would find at the top of like mountains in Colorado in the US but you know I didn't feel any altitude sickness at all I felt really good for this hike and once again you can take as many days as you want you know if you're feeling some kind of altitude sickness or if you're getting winded when you're going uphill all day you can take your time and stop at every camp and stretch this out to like a whole week the trail is very marked you're gonna find the little white blue marker like paint on the trees as you go most of the trail is you know very well maintained and built you'll find the stone steps for a lot of the trail through the forest and even though I had a downloaded map from all trails on my phone with you know a detailed view of the trail and elevation Ede honestly didn't need it you know you could follow this trail just following the markers and not get lost I think but for every trail I do like to be able to see what I'm coming up against elevation wise obviously to stay on trail and you know most people don't realize it but with phones you can turn on airplane mode and still have your GPS location because you know the satellites never arrest they're always working so as long as your phone has power it'll tell you where you are on the map yeah I've got a custom map that I made with notes with locations what you can find in the description below so make sure to check that out I did see a couple people on trail with guides and that's totally fine you know that would be helpful to speak the language to get some advice some insight along the way and of course you know helping to pay for a local guide to do their thing you know that's awesome to support the local economy but I personally I really love the challenge of figuring things out myself I like to go at my own pace so I typically hike solo unguided which is what I did for this Trek and even though I went in the winter when there was less people I did run into some of the same people every day and I got to chat you know in the tea houses with other hikers and of course the people who work there I did this Trek in early February and it's a little colder and there's a bit more snow than usual but that's a trade-off that I like to do if it means that there's less people I like a quieter trail so yeah I thought it was a good time to go there are months when you can get flowers which I've seen some photos and those look beautiful and then I think the most popular time would probably be October I did get clear skies every morning which is kind of the thing with the mountains the weather is a little like unpredictable in the sense that you're always going to get like some random clouds showing up but at noon time the mountain clouds kind of did always show up and it was overcast from then on which makes for pretty lazy evenings because it's not the best to shoot it's not that fun to hike when you don't you can't see anything so most of my hiking took place from like 6:00 a.m. to noon every day it was a little cold at night but because you're staying in tea houses you know you sleep in your sleeping bag and then you have a big blanket that you can pull over top so it wasn't really an issue if I was setting up my tent you know I probably would have had to bring some extra things to keep warm especially in the top when it's really snowy so having the tea houses in this temperature was you know nice so most travelers are going to arrive in to Kathmandu which is the major city in Nepal from there you need to get to Pokhara there are two options fly take a bus the bus is like ten dollars and take six hours I decided to fly which was about 100 dollars each way Pokhara is a big city but there's a lovely little lakeside district for tourists it's like a mile or two long stretch of just restaurants cafes tourism agencies just everything that you might need it's really nice to just like walk along the lake and have all of these options and cool places to hang out I had a few days before and after my trek and I just drank and ate my way through this city every day the LAN how Chinese restaurant is supposedly one of the oldest in the town the city and it was some of the best Chinese food I've ever had it was really really good most of the coffee shops are very similar in the fact that they've got good coffee cheap prices use Wi-Fi lots of space you know you can do laptop work there and just hang out all day but I suggest the white rabbit coffee shop Himalayan Java coffee is like the Starbucks of Nepal so you'll find one in like the most popular area of the lakeside district and they've got good lattes good Wi-Fi and crazy gecko is a little out of town on the north but on the lake and definitely like an Instagram spot I stayed at the hotel Mountain View and the guy in charge was super helpful very friendly I totally suggest staying there he was actually the one who suggested that I hike the Marty Amahl gave me a lot of advice and quickly became a friend and subscriber and if you go there and mention this video or you know me I think he's offering a 10% discount at his hotel and then a 15% discount at the hotel next door the hotel Snow Peak so check the links in the description if you want to see exactly where those are so there's a tourism center in town and you have to get some permits you have to get two permits for this Trek it cost about $50 you have to have four square photos for these permits I shot and printed them in Hong Kong before I came to Nepal but you can get them shot and printed right there at the center and then they're also like photo studios all around that area I didn't realize but you have to have travel insurance to go and get these permits so I just hopped on the Wi-Fi and bought them online real quick I think for like 50 or $60 take your permits you kind of just put them in your passport and then you need to take that with you on the trek so compared to treks like in Switzerland I think this is a really cheap trek the permits being probably one of the most expensive things that you have to buy with the insurance I think I spent about $200 on this Trek without counting the airfare you know getting to the city but you can do it much cheaper than I did I spent whatever I wanted on food and drinks you know I just I bought if I wanted it I bought it and I ate a lot on this trick so if you just like drink water and not buy candy bars and coffee I think you could probably cut your expenses in half I got about two hundred and fifty dollars out of the ATM before I went on this Trek so that's a lot of one thousand rupee bills but I think that's you know that's more than enough to go on this Trek I think I spent like two hun in cash in town I bought some snacks I got some cashews almonds Kit Kats Snickers some apples but to be honest you could buy all of these things like once you get off the bus at the trailhead and then there's also like tons of snacks at the tea houses with similar prices I think tree nuts like cashews are my favorite to have because they're you know they're nutrient dense they don't spoil they're pretty quick and if you're hungry on trail you just take a handful and you're good for like the next hour what I call day zero is like getting to the trailhead I usually don't like to wake up early I take my time get out to the trailhead and then find a place to sleep and then the next full day is like the first day of hiking I took a taxi to the city bus station it cost about $3 and then at the bus station you kind of just ask for the place that you're going my bus was right there very easy to find I was going to Conde which costs another $3 it was about an hour ride you get there eventually I hopped off at the trailhead spot a con day by myself and it's very easy to find the trailhead you know I popped open my map app and I was able to find exactly where to start the trail right there I hiked three miles in one hour to the post Anya camp and I passed right through Australia camp which I don't know is it felt kind of boring it was a little overcast so it wasn't that good for filming I don't think I used mainly any of those shots in the final edit but there was a checkpoint where they wanted to see my permit I think they stamped it or something and then within 10 seconds I was back on the trail on my way once you arrive at a camp that you know you're going to spend the night at it's a little awkward because there are a couple options there were maybe like six or seven different Hotel tea houses that you could stay at and what I like to do is like walk around get a sense of the place and then arbitrarily pick you know I don't I did I don't know what you wanted to stay ad they're kind of all the same I guess but I picked the one that I liked because there were there was a dog running around but the basic rules of these campsites and Nepal or that if you pick one you have to stay there they don't want you eating at different tea houses like if you're sleeping at one you're eating there as well my room cost three dollars for the night consisted of two single beds with pillows blankets lovely pink walls I slept inside my silk liner to keep you know my sleeping bag clean then inside my down sleeping bag rated for like twenty degrees which was good and then I had a big blanket to throw over top and even though it got very cold at night you know this is more than enough to stay warm and cozy and hiking is the best because you can like ten or twelve hours to sleep but during the mornings and the evenings you're kind of spending your time in the common area the dining hall of the tea houses where there'll be other people to chat with for dinner that night I had chicken curry with rice for six dollars and then I had a big beer that was six dollars as well and I really liked the gold-coloured platings that the kitchens used like very Napoleon to me feel or Nepalese the next morning day one I woke up at six had breakfast at 6:30 I ordered what they called a heavy breakfast which had a bunch of things my favorite being the porridge just porridge with like honey and bananas it's just so good in the morning throughout your stay they just marked down the prices of whatever you buy and then you pay before you head out during breakfast is when the little white dogs showed up and sat next to me as I finished breakfast and then once I headed out and started hiking he followed me and he followed me for a while I decided to name him ghosts because he looked like a little little tiny direwolf I'm a Game of Thrones fan so that's what Jon Snow named his direwolf so ghost was like a little guide he followed behind me but then he'd go ahead every so often whenever there was like someone else on the trail or something coming up he liked to scout ahead a little bit which was helpful he liked to keep moving so I will say every time that I stopped to set up a shot walked and then had to walk back and then start it again he got you know he followed me throughout the whole time and he would get super confused and like kind of throw me a little bit of shade but this dog like lives on the mountain and has probably gone up and down this trail hundreds of times just kind of being a little guide for hikers asking for food if you feed this dog he's probably going to follow you and love you I did feed him so that explains why ghosts followed me for days he is his own dog he does what he wants so so many people were like why didn't you take him home like that would be ridiculous to do stealing this dog off the mountain would be so weird logistically and ethically so that's ridiculous and I've seen a lot of stray dogs in like Peru and different cities and they act so differently compared to how ghosts acts ghosts showed affection and wanted to be pet and would like follow you around and almost acted like a pet with no owner whereas stray dogs you know they've always got something going they want to go someplace they sometimes will like attack other dogs they're just like hunting for food where ghost was like way more chill but we continued on the path was beautiful like dark brown mud like the really green mossy trees eventually patches of snow and it was much cleaner than what I'm used to they were actually hanging bags for trash along the way and I think that made people not throw their trash on the trail as much I did spot a couple guides with their own trash bags hanging off their packs filled with trash which is awesome so if they're hiking and like picking up and cleaning up as they hike that's fantastic I'm always going to respect anyone who helps to clean up nature I met two blokes from the UK Ollie and Pierre on the trail they were fun to chat with I saw them you know at each camp and eventually at the top but it was fun getting to know those two because I think it was one of their first hikes so I was curious you know asking how they picked this hike you know kind of gaining gaining some perspective as new hikers was interesting to me I stopped for coffee which I think was a hundred rupees so like one dollar eventually it made it to forest camp and this woman like assured us over to her table her restaurant wanted us to eat lunch at her spot which we did we ordered I think three del BOTS which is like this Nepal dish it's kind of like a meme at this point dal Bhat power 24-hour it's all-you-can-eat rice potatoes like some kind of soup chili powder stuff it was delicious and she definitely kept putting more and more on our plate and we gave some to ghosts it was really good lunch you know sitting in the Sun with a coke I think it was eight dollars for a coke and elba all-in-all I hiked 10 miles in like five or six hours to lower camp dinner that night I had coffee beer mix macaroni which was delicious like big piece of macaroni like pieces of cheese vegetables very tasty had noodle soup with veggies some more tea and then I bought a refill of my water once again had some time to chill in the evening because there was overcast you kind of just like walk around and talked to other hikers who were all super friendly people very cool to chat with them but every so often the clouds would part and you would see the peaks especially if it was like sunset orange glow light they just like illuminate and if you spot that through the window you hop out you know take photos everyone's like oh that's beautiful and then as quickly as it appeared it disappears so it comes and goes it was a little colder up the mountain and ghost was being a little devil he wanted to be in the bed where it was a little warmer but he had muddy paws so he was just making a mess I did eventually let him sleep in that bad I slept in the different bed but I put like you know pillows around him with some blankets and I think he like curled up and had a nice little night their day too had a light breakfast of porridge and I paid for my bill I think all in all I spent $28 at lo camp and then made my way into the next section of the hike I started running into snow and ice on the path so I put on my micro spikes which I think if you go in February for this Trek you absolutely need because it gets pretty slippery and plus the crunchy sound of like using my croissant ice it just it sounds really really cool eventually you'll get out of the forest and start having great views once you reach a small called Bedell den I had coffee and it costs a hundred and 70 rupees a little more expensive and it's so funny cause like the higher you go on the trek the more you pay for the same thing I hiked 3.5 miles in 3 hours to high camp you know I ran into a couple other hikers that I knew there so I bought tea for everyone I think that was like three dollars and we still had a good view of the ridge and the mountain so we decided to try to go to the end you know the the view point I think it was noon so about halfway up the clouds started to roll in and it got super overcast and then going a little higher it even started to snow quite a bit and got into a pretty nasty blizzardy whiteout situation so took out my trekking poles ate a quick snack and then decided to dislike rush back down to high camp mainly because ghost was getting a little cold and didn't look like he was having fun was like licking his paws because they were cold yeah he didn't have a good night he was actually struggling to eat I like gave him a bunch of stuff and he was just trying to stay warm and practically like sleeping next to and under the furnace when I went to bed he didn't follow me so he must have been like feeling really weird and I didn't see him the next morning which was odd but yeah that evening once again very lazy I sat around and chatted with some other people in T house tried to stay warm sipped coffee beer ate mixed macaroni again had beer coke ramen and went to bed the next morning I planned on summoning even though it's not really a summit it's just like getting to the highest point of the ridge some people left like in the dark in the morning I feel like that's a bit unnecessary I I went at sunrise and hiked five miles to the viewpoint which i think is like the good a good finishing point of the hike like if you get to this viewpoint it's like you know good job you made it there's a hut there's obviously a great 360 view point of everything and we had great weather is very clear and you can actually buy coffee up there coffee or tea I think it cost three dollars so this was like you know the climax of the trip we went from $1 to $2 and now it cost $3 for a coffee very expensive but nobody had hiked past the viewpoint that morning so I broke trail and headed out along the ridge you know sometimes falling into snow that was like this deep and eventually I reached a point that was very steep on both sides and I got a little scared I'm a little afraid of heights and once I get into that mindset of like being afraid I didn't want to go any further so I felt good about my hike I turned the other way and then went back to high camp but taking a moment to just soak in the view and looking up at fishtail mountain it was really beautiful and it's actually a sacred mountain you're not allowed to hike it so supposedly no one has ever been to the top which is kind of a humbling inspiring thing to stop and look and think about and people watching those clips on the ridge think that ghost came back because they see a white pup but that was actually a different dog he was way plumper more plump than ghost and was having old trouble going through this now he was like he was a weirdo back at high camp I settled my bill and then descended down five miles in about three hours down to a place called sitting and I basically trail ran most of it because I wasn't shooting I put my camera and my tripod around and then just used my trekking poles and the path was very icy and kind of really fun to like slide down is it's just like beautiful to go from Ridge to snowy forest to green forest and then the base and I actually ran into ghosts on like halfway down the mountain which is crazy because he was going back up so he must have gone down that morning and then came back up with a group of Korean girl hikers and I know I stopped I said hi he definitely recognized me and then I said okay goodbye ghost and he followed them up the mountain so he made new friends you know that's that's the ending of ghost story I'm sure if you did this hike he might still be there so let me know if you ever see ghosts before reaching the bottom actually broke my trekking pole I think I put it into a crack and then it snapped the bottom which was annoying insid hang there was a bunch of people ready to drive hikers out of the mountain in Jeeps I had to wait because I wasn't gonna pay for a whole Jeep by myself for other people to show up so we could carpool so I bought a beer for seven bucks and then eventually we got a whole Jeep together and I think I paid $10 for my seat which is you know good because it was like a two two and a half hour drive through the mountains through some crazy rivers and passes all the way down to Pokhara so what did I bring on the trip for hiking gear I had my Hyperlite 2,400 Southwest pack which is waterproof to a degree very lightweight and carries everything I love this pack my sleeping bag was rated 420 degrees it's a quilt and was perfect for the temperature very lightweight as well the micro spikes were very necessary I think you should have them if you go in February trekking poles once again very helpful for descending sleeping bag liner helps to keep your sleeping bag clean because after your hike it's much easier to just throw that into the wash compared to having to wash your sleeping bag I had a headlight torch that is rechargeable with micro USB so that was very easy to recharge if I had to I had a water bottle that I reused from the hotel before the hike and it was you know it was even more than what I needed because there are so many tea houses and options to buy drinks that you know I only sipped water between camps a little bit I brought my own toilet paper which i think is necessary keep it in like something to keep it dry like a plastic bag in your pack because you go to the bathroom in outhouses that are just like holes in the ground and most of all of them do not have toilet paper available so you kind of have to just bring your own all of the campsites and tea houses have options to buy toilet paper and it's not that expensive so maybe that's the better option for clothing I had a son hoodie which I love because it's very easy to protect myself from the Sun my neck my face you know especially with a white hat over the top I had a gore-tex shell to keep the rain off of me I had a winter hat to keep warm I had gloves a sweater zip pants two pairs of merino wool socks which I wore the whole time and I think it was good because you know it was pretty cold for my feet in the snow Brooks trail runners which people are always like why don't you have hiking boots hiking boots suck i love trail running shoes i need to be a little quicker on my feet and honestly whatever works for you works so quit telling me to buy boots boot suck I had sunglasses a neck scarf which I live by like keeping my neck warm when I'm cold is just very major key and I had my Patagonia orange jacket my nano puff it's so lightweight and easy to like pack but then it keeps you so warm I live by this thing for filmmaking gear I had a Sony a7 3 which is a mirrorless camera the smallest camera that I can get amazing quality with with a single lens the 16 to 35 this is just like a pair that I've been using for years now and it's pretty great I hang it over my pack with a peak design wrist strap that I just like tie around and then clip on and off my tripod was a Manfrotto elements very lightweight I broke my peak design travel tripod and I'm waiting to get a new one so honestly the Manfrotto elements is just like a place filler right now my drone is a maverick 2 pro with two extra drone batteries my microphone was a rode videomic pro but my audio port actually broke on my camera so like just a couple hours into the hike I ditched the microphone and just used the onboard microphone on the camera which is kind of surprising because most people think it's super low quality but I'm actually starting to really like it and thinking about ditching you know external microphones plugged into the camera entirely one of my most popular silent hiking films horn strand ear in Iceland was recorded with the on-board camera microphone and people praised the sound design and recording quality of that film so hey it works I had my iPhone 11 Pro an external battery charger for it and then for additional camera batteries for my Sony a7 3 so five batteries in total was more than enough to last the three days of filming so I've shot almost a dozen hiking films at this point and I feel very confident you know one I'm out on my own for multiple days on a hike I love making a film about it I'm using manual settings now so manual focus for every shot manual exposure I don't want things changing I'm using manual Calvin for white balance but the picture profile is the factory default that the camera comes with so just standard across the board no crazy picture profiles no Lutz and editing I just want things to be as natural and simple as possible and I just exposed my image correctly from the start I don't use nd filters and I'll just play with the shutter speed I don't really mind there's not too much movement in my shots they're all locked down tripod for the most part so having a crazy shutter speed doesn't bother me and I'm trying to use like five point six to eight aperture in bright daylight to get the sharpness I think that's like the sharpest point of the lens so and yeah tripod shots I think there's something about a wide-angle lockdown shot outside that just gives you so much detail especially in the forest shots there's just so much that's missed if you're handheld or you have bokeh so I do have to set up my camera go do the hike the walk and then stop come back grab the camera and then go back you know start the hike again I don't do any editing on trail I just want to focus on the hike and record and then once I get back into town I just spend whatever time it takes to ingest the footage organize create the rough cut do the sound design add music if it's needed do any slight color Corrections if something is wrong to you know boost the highlights or increase or decrease the saturation if but it's barely ever needed and then export and upload to YouTube I think this film took me like 36 hours after getting back into town to upload and show to you on YouTube and I'm really happy with how it turned out I think right now within the first three days it's already past a hundred thousand views which is better than any video I've ever had within the first three days which is awesome I think the addition of ghosts and just you know the beautiful ridge views helped make this video really cool I think it helps to honor you know Nepalese culture in whatever way I could for those three days by showing the people the flags the food whatever I could find on the hike that was unique to that area so I plan to keep hiking and I'm trying to find the balance between sponsorship and just creating things and having total freedom and I think I make better films when I'm just able to do whatever I want and the biggest thing that helps me do that is you your support your comments your interest is amazing just caring about these films and watching and giving me feedback is amazing but one step further than that I'm now offering membership on my channel so if you go to the main channel page you'll see a little join button and there are two options you can get for two dollars access to behind the scenes so I'm sharing photos and updates every week almost every other day about what I'm working on where I'm going next and answering any questions you have within you know the comments of that membership only post it's probably one of the best ways to like you know get one-on-one conversations with me and the longer you are a member the more you get like little stars which is kind of silly but I think it's really cool because I see how long someone is a member within the comments of videos so it's definitely a way to stand out and I would love to like you know Connect and help the superfans the people who are really watching and giving me awesome feedback so that's the first tier of membership the second tier is a supporter so for every video that I create like this I'm going to shout out in the credits whoever these supporters are and right now I have one person so thank you Toby for being the first supporter thanks Toby all right thank you so much for watching this video of course if I missed something ask away in the comments below but I'd love to make a video guide for every hike that I go on because as much as I love you know making videos and sharing the experience I want you to get out there and hike it yourself in real life if you if you can so whatever I can do to help make that happen I'm going to but thanks for watching and take care

Channel: Kraig Adams

Views: 259,816

Rating: 4.9707642 out of 5

Keywords: Everything you need to know to Hike the Mardi Himal Trek in Nepal, mardi himal hike in nepal, Kraig Adams, how to hike the mardi himal trek in Nepal, mardi himal trek in nepal, gear for mardi himal trek, Kraig Adams hiking film, Everything you need to know to Hike Mardi Himal Trek in Nepal, Helpful Advice before hiking the Mardi Himal Trek in Nepal

Id: t5rTGYj33G0

Length: 35min 36sec (2136 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 13 2020

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