Mardi Himal Trek:
A Survival Guide for the
Gloriously Unprepared
A 6-day journey up one of Nepal’s most breathtaking hidden trails — told with love, altitude sickness, and entirely too many noodle soups.
Picture this: you, gasping like a fish on a mountainside, legs burning, lungs on strike — and yet a grin plastered across your face so wide it could embarrass the Himalayas themselves.
That’s Mardi Himal Trek. Tucked behind the more famous Annapurna Base Camp trail like a shy genius in the back row of class, Mardi Himal is everything you want from a Himalayan adventure — without the crowds, the chaos, or the need to remortgage your house.
This is a trek for people who want to feel small in the best possible way. At 4,500 metres above sea level, you’ll stand at Mardi Himal High Camp and watch Machhapuchhre (Fishtail Mountain) rise so dramatically in front of you that you’ll wonder why anyone ever bothered building cities. Pokhara sits glimmering far below like a forgotten toy. The world is enormous. You are tiny. Everything is perfect.
This guide will get you there — one blister, one bowl of dal bhat, and one wheeze at a time.
Start/End: Pokhara (both ends — because symmetry is satisfying)
Distance: ~45–55 km round trip
Max Altitude: 4,500m (High Camp) — optional push to 4,968m (Mardi Himal Base Camp)
Difficulty: Moderate to Challenging (your calves will have opinions)
Best Season: October–November & March–May (avoid monsoon unless you enjoy being a submarine)
Pokhara → Kande → Australian Camp
Start: 827m → Camp: 2,060m
Day one begins the way all great adventures do — in a taxi, mildly questioning your life choices, as Pokhara disappears in the rear-view mirror. You’ll take a jeep (or local bus, if you enjoy your vertebrae as abstract art) to Kande village, the official starting point of the Mardi Himal trek.
From Kande, the trail climbs steeply through rhododendron forests that, in spring, burst into such extravagant shades of red and pink that you’ll feel like you’ve wandered into a paint factory. The path is well-marked and the ascent is unambiguous: straight up. Your lungs will send a formal letter of complaint around hour two. Ignore it.
By afternoon, you’ll arrive at Australian Camp — named, bafflingly, after Australians who clearly had excellent taste. The teahouse views here are stunning: Machhapuchhre looms ahead, the valley spreads below, and you’ll eat your first of approximately forty-seven bowls of dal bhat feeling incredibly smug about your life decisions.
Start early from Pokhara — ideally by 7am. You want the light, you want the empty trail, and you very much want to arrive at Australian Camp before the afternoon clouds roll in and steal your mountain views like a moody curtain call.
Australian Camp → Forest Camp
Camp: 2,060m → Forest Camp: 2,600m
Wake up at Australian Camp, wipe the sleep from your eyes, and be immediately slapped awake by the most absurd mountain panorama you’ve ever seen before breakfast. Machhapuchhre. Annapurna South. Hiunchuli. Just casually standing there being enormous while you attempt to brew instant coffee.
Day two is a gentler, more philosophical journey. The trail winds through dense forest — oak, rhododendron, and tall conifers — along the ridge that forms the spine of the Mardi Himal route. You’ll feel like a hobbit in the Shire, except with a much heavier backpack and no Gandalf to carry it.
Low Camp (1,970m, which you may pass through) offers tea and biscuits. Accept them. The trail continues upward through increasingly enchanted forest until you reach Forest Camp, a small cluster of teahouses nestled amongst the trees where the evening light filters through branches in a way that makes even the most hardened cynic reach for their phone camera.
Forest Camp → High Camp
Forest Camp: 2,600m → High Camp: 3,580m
Today is the day the trail stops being coy and starts showing off. As you climb above the treeline, the forest falls away and the world opens up in a panorama so vast and dramatic that you’ll stop walking involuntarily, mouth open, looking faintly like a confused goldfish.
The trail narrows as it climbs the ridge, with jaw-dropping drops on both sides and Machhapuchhre growing larger with every step. The Upper Forest Camp (3,150m) provides a welcome mid-point and a cup of sweet milk tea that you will love more than most people in your life.
The final push to High Camp at 3,580m is steep and glorious. By the time you collapse onto a teahouse bench and someone places a hot bowl of garlic soup in front of you, you’ll feel like you’ve earned the entire planet. Because you basically have.
High Camp sunsets — when the clouds allow — are legendary. Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Machhapuchhre, and Mardi Himal itself turn gold, then orange, then pink, then a deep purple before the stars arrive in numbers you didn’t know existed. You’ll sleep in a cold sleeping bag wearing all your clothes, and it will be perfect.
At 3,580m, some trekkers begin to feel the altitude — mild headache, slight breathlessness, the vague impression that your head is full of wet wool. Drink water obsessively. Walk slowly. Do not race. If you feel genuinely unwell, descend. The mountain will be there tomorrow; altitude sickness is not a flex.
Summit Day — High Camp → Mardi Himal Base Camp
High Camp: 3,580m → Base Camp: 4,500m+
Your alarm goes off at 5am. Outside, it is very dark and very cold and every human instinct you possess will scream at you to stay in your sleeping bag. Do not listen to your instincts. Today is the day.
You’ll set off in the predawn darkness with headlamps, the trail climbing steeply up loose scree and rocky ridgeline toward the heavens. The cold is clean and sharp. Your breath clouds ahead of you. And then — somewhere around 4,000 metres — the sun crests the eastern peaks and paints Machhapuchhre in shades of gold so pure you’ll feel like you’re watching the world being invented.
The trail to Mardi Himal Base Camp (4,500m) and the viewpoint at 4,968m is the crown jewel of this entire adventure. Standing there, Annapurna I, Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, and Machhapuchhre surround you in a full amphitheatre of rock and ice and sky. Dhaulagiri hovers in the distance. Below, the Modi Khola valley drops away into green mist.
You will probably cry. It’s fine. Everyone does. The mountains keep your secrets.
After soaking in all the glory your eyes can hold, you descend back to High Camp or continue down to Forest Camp or Low Camp, depending on your legs’ current attitude toward you.
Descent — High Camp → Siding Village
High Camp: 3,580m → Siding: 1,750m
Descending is, in theory, easier than ascending. In practice, it is a completely different kind of suffering — a suffering of knees, ankles, and the creeping suspicion that your trekking poles are the only thing between you and an ignominious tumble into the valley below.
The route down takes an alternative path through Siding village — a peaceful, traditional Gurung settlement draped in prayer flags, surrounded by terraced fields, with chickens conducting extremely important business in the middle of the path. It is unbearably charming.
Take your time on the descent. Stop at every teahouse. Drink tea. Eat things. Your knees will disagree with speed and your eyes will not want to stop looking at the scenery. Neither instinct is wrong.
Some trekkers descend back the same way they came (via Australian Camp). The Siding route adds variety and passes through beautiful villages, but involves a longer descent. Both are lovely. Choose based on your knees’ emotional availability.
Siding → Lumre → Pokhara
Siding: 1,750m → Pokhara: 822m
The final morning. You’ll walk down from Siding to Lumre on the Pokhara–Beni highway, where jeeps and local buses wait to return you to civilisation, hot showers, and restaurant menus with more than five items.
The walk down is easy and beautiful. You’ll pass through rice paddies, cross small bridges, pass children heading to school, and dogs conducting their morning patrols. By the time you reach Lumre, you’ll be back in warmth and noise and traffic horns and you’ll feel, briefly, like an alien returned from another world.
Back in Pokhara, you will shower for approximately forty-five minutes. You will eat something that isn’t dal bhat. You will sit on a lakeside café terrace with a cold drink and look north, toward the mountains, and feel the peculiar, bittersweet ache of a great adventure concluded.
And you will immediately start planning when you can go back.
Before You Go: The Practical Bits
Permits
You need two permits: the Annapurna Conservation Area Permit (ACAP) and the TIMS card (Trekkers’ Information Management System). Both are easily obtained in Pokhara at the Nepal Tourism Board office near the lakeside. Bring passport photos. Budget NPR 3,000–4,000 combined. Don’t skip this — rangers check.
Getting There
Pokhara is a 6-7 hour bus ride or 25-minute flight from Kathmandu. From Pokhara, take a local bus or shared jeep to Kande (the trailhead). The ride takes about 45 minutes and costs next to nothing, if your definition of “costs next to nothing” includes holding onto a door handle while the jeep negotiates a road that a mountain goat would find adventurous.
Where to Sleep
The Mardi Himal trail has teahouses at every major camp — Australian Camp, Forest Camp, Low Camp, and High Camp. These are simple, honest affairs: a wooden room, a mattress, blankets, and a dining hall where you’ll eat enormous quantities of food and have excellent conversations with strangers from at least six different countries. No advance booking required in most seasons; just show up and ask.
Essential Packing List (The Non-Negotiables)
- Warm layers — thermals, fleece, down jacket (High Camp gets cold, like actually cold)
- Waterproof jacket and trousers
- Trekking poles (your knees will write you a thank-you letter)
- Good trekking boots, well broken-in
- Sleeping bag (rated to -5°C or lower)
- Headlamp + spare batteries
- Sunscreen (SPF 50 minimum — the sun at altitude has no mercy)
- Water purification tablets or filter
- Altitude sickness medication — consult your doctor about Diamox
- Snacks: chocolate, nuts, energy bars (a psychological necessity)
- A camera (your phone is fine; your eyes are better)
- Cash in NPR — no ATMs on the trail
Teahouse accommodation: NPR 200–500/night (often free if you eat there)
Meals on trail: NPR 300–600 per meal
Total trail budget: ~NPR 3,000–5,000/day (approx. $25–40 USD)
Guide/Porter: Optional but recommended — approximately $20–30/day. They also carry your bag, which is one of the greatest gifts another human being can bestow.
Final Thoughts From a Person Who Survived
Mardi Himal Trek will ask things of you. Your legs, your lungs, your ability to sleep in cold rooms and eat the same lentil soup every day and be genuinely thrilled about it. But in return, it gives you something rarer and harder to find than any comfort: the feeling of being alive in the fullest, most staggering, most grateful sense of the word.
The trail is not the most famous in Nepal. It is not the longest, not the highest, not the most extreme. What it is, is perfectly itself. A beautiful, challenging, unforgettable path that leads — step after ridiculous, wheezing, magnificent step — to one of the most extraordinary views on earth.
Go. Walk slowly. Eat all the dal bhat. Say yes to the second cup of tea. Let the mountains make you small, and the smallness make you free.
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