Welcome to the Mardi Himal Trek, a trek that takes you through the beautiful Annapurna region of Nepal, a trek that is not as short as the 3 day Khumai Danda Trek but not as long as the Annapurna Base Camp Trek. This trek sits right in the middle of these two treks in terms of duration as well as the location while offering some of the most spectacular views of the Himalayas, including Annapurna South, Machhapuchhre (Fishtail), Hiunchuli, and Mardi Himal.
👉 Duration: 4-5 days
👉 Difficulty level: Beginner friendly
👉 Maximum elevation: 4,500 meters
👉 Cost: 7,000 NPR to 10,000 NPR
Itinerary of Mardi Himal Trek:
🚌 Night 1: Night bus from Kathmandu to Kande
🥾 Day 1: Trek from Kande to Forest Camp/Low Camp
🥾 Day 2: Trek from Forest Camp/Low Camp to High Camp
🥾 Day 3: Trek from High to Mardi Base Camp and Return Trek to Siding
🚌 Night 3: Return night bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu
Let’s divide this trek into three different parts. We will take you through the start to finish of this trek so bear with us and get ready to experience some of the most remarkable experiences that you can have while trekking in the himalayas.
Part 1: Drive to Kande and Trek to Low Camp
We will begin our journey from Kathmandu on a night bus that departs at 8pm. Because of all the construction work that is going on the highway, it is our recommendation that, if you’re traveling by road, you’re better off taking the night bus because most of the times you’ll be sleeping or trying to get some sleep due to which all the madness and badness of the road will slip away in your sleep. We’ll reach Kande at around 5am.
After a light breakfast and tea, we’ll start walking towards the Australian Base Camp. The trek towards the Australian Base Camp is a fairly easy one where you’ll walk through some local villages. We will reach the base camp in around an hour.
We’ll have breakfast at the Australian Base Camp, take some pictures and upload our Instagram stories using the wifi available there. After breakfast, we’ll start climbing uphill towards Deurali, where we’ll have our first meal of the trek. We will take a good 1 hour break here, talk to some other trekkers, gain back the energy and resume our trek.
From Deurali, we’ll continue towards Forest Camp, where we’ll have some tea and take a short rest. Forest Camp is a place where most of the trekkers spend their first night. If you feel like it’s a better idea to stay there rather than pushing for Low Camp, then you can absolutely do that. It is also important to note that starting from the Australian Base Camp, most of the first day of trek is going through dense forest due to which no prominent views of the surrounding hills or the mountains will be visible until this point.
After Forest Camp, we’ll climb towards Low Camp, where we’ll spend our first night. This day of trekking includes almost 12 hours of walking with rests and meals in between.
Part 2: Trek from Low Camp to The Mardi Base Camp (4,500m)
The next day, we will wake up to see the magnificent sunrise right outside of our teahouse from Low Camp. After having a light breakfast, we’ll start walking towards Badal Danda. Since the second day trek is pretty short and light, we can leave Low Camp a little late too and walk slowly enjoying nature and the view. We’ll take some pictures near the first hotel of Badal Danda and then walk towards the main section of Badal Danda where we’ll stop for some Dal Bhat Tarkari and take more pictures. There is wifi available here, so we can call our friends, family and loved ones.
From there, we’ll leave for High Camp and reach there early within the next 2-3 hours . We can rest, chill, watch the view and talk to other trekkers. We’ll have dinner and sleep early because the next day we’ll have to start the trek before the sun is out.
The third day of our trek starts by waking up at 3:30 am. We will wear warm clothes and leave our main trekking bag in the room. It is very important to take the torch light, all the snacks that we have and the power bank in a smaller backpack and start walking towards the Mardi View Point. Walking through the trail at night, we will reach the Mardi View Point (4,200m) right before sunrise. You can expect a good amount of crowd here waiting for the sunrise with their phones and camera out. We’ve noticed that almost 70% – 80% of the trekkers return from the Mardi View Point without reaching the Mardi Base Camp. However, in our case, we will take photos, have a cup of black tea and start trekking towards the base camp.
This is when the real adventure begins! We will walk through rugged rocky terrains and witness the mountains even closer and closer. We will pass through the upper Mardi View Point, where, depending on the time of the year, you might be able to see a small frozen lake. After 1.5 hours of walking from the view point, we will reach the base camp. The view of The Fishtail mountain is blocked by Mardi Himal from the Mardi Base Camp. However, the feeling that you get when you make it to the base camp is amazing! Now is the time when we’d want to eat the snacks that we’ve brought with ourselves, take some rest and start descending.
Part 3: Return Trek to Siding and a Jeep Ride to Pokhara
While on our way back, we’ll reach High Camp at around 12pm. At this point, we’ll be really tired, so we will take some rest before having our meal. We will have enough Dal Bhat Tarkari to fill ourselves up for the day so that we can trek the entire remaining day.
At this point, we’ll have already trekked almost 8 hours on this day. It’s up to us if we want to make it to Pokhara or stop somewhere in between. However, in this blog, we’ll make it to Pokhara on the same night.
We will quickly reach Badal Danda on our return trek. With a short rest, we will charge towards Low Camp. The Low Camp is vibrant and a really good place to stop for lunch and rejuvenate. From Low Camp, we will take an alternative route via the jungle route to Siding. We will also ask for the contact number of jeeps from local tea shops so that we can call the jeep to be there for us when we arrive at Siding. After 3-4 more hours of downhill trek, we will finally arrive at Siding.
There is no point of delaying from now on because, the quicker we can get to Pokhara the better. The road from Siding is pretty scary and bumpy until half way. After a 1.5-hour jeep ride, we will reach Pokhara. We can spend our night at Pokhara or take a night bus back to Kathmandu.
