There was a time in my life when mountain-loving colleagues kept coming in my life.
One was my colleague-turned-friend, who used to hike the mountains in the Philippines, until her legs would no longer bear her on such strenuous activity. Another was the colleague-turned-peer who designed my Derbyshire itinerary for me, while I was deep in my Blue Period.
Then there was the colleague-turned-stranger who lit my exit from the Blue Period. The mountain biker, who went on to tour the world. It was this last one – keeping to the rule of threes – who finally pushed me to Annapurna.
I had never really done multi-day trekking before. And I don’t think I would have ever done it, if I hadn’t learned how to go for something first, and work out how later , the year before. So I did that again with Annapurna – I thought it was now or never.
Once again, it was an epic trip. I went in one person and came home another, levelling up again.
Why did I trek in the monsoon?
The fact that I went in the monsoon season added to the epic nature of this particular Odyssey. There was no mysterious reason. It was simply a time that my job could spare me, and it was the warmest time in the year (I thought I would need that advantage up in the mountains).
But the outcome of that decision was the chance to glimpse Annapurna as she is in her abundant summer glory – her overflowing life, and magical mists.
So here is my 10-part series describing to you those things of Annapurna that a non-trekker like me remembers from her senses. All through to the Base Camp, all through the monsoon, and back down again.
