Trekkers have found the Annapurna Base Camp trek to be legendary with breath taking views of most of the 8,000 meter peaks in the Annapurna Range, and nearby mountains such as 26,795 foot Dhaulagiri or the spectacular but not climbed 22,963 foot sacred Machhapuchhre. Also as you hike through Nepali villages you meet the local people, and learn how they successfully manage life in the Himalaya of Nepal.
In terms of the natural environment the route to the Annapurna Base Camp goes through a variety of landscapes that have evolved to cope with greatly differing temperatures and precipitation by responding to their varying elevations ranging from the spectacular rhododendron and bamboo forests at beginning of the trek to alpine forests when you near the Annapurna Base Camp at 13,546 feet.
Hiking through such a variety of mountain landscapes, and becoming acquainted with the mountain people of Nepal rivaled my past treks on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada of California, hikes to villages in the Sierra Norte de Puebla of Mexico where they cultivate maize as their ancestors did a thousand years ago, and getting to know Swiss farmers living in the Bernese Oberland who cultivate crops and graze cattle on the high alps near Engelberg like their ancestors before and after the retreat of the Roman Empire to the south.
A trek to the Annapurna Base Camp is not just a hike in the mountains to test your endurance, prove your strength, and practice your landscape photography. The subtle impact of the people, and the changing environment can combine to move the focus of one’s life in new direction.