Annapurna Expedition starts!

Best greetings from my second home town Kathmandu! I arrived here on 28th and am now ready to get to the mountains! I’ve got lot of my gear stored here and every time it is one big packing operation upon my arrival. Now everything’s sorted and my stuff in fact is already on the way to Tatopani in Kali Gandaki valley.

Other than that I was this morning given blessing by Rinpoche in Boudha. I feel this is very important for me and would not feel good about going climbing these peaks without doing puja.
After puja we went to Ministry of Tourism for attaining our peak permit.

This trip is operated by my friend Mingma Gyalje Sherpa and his agency Dreamer’s Destination. I will be sharing his group’s basecamp and being provided services needed there. The permit’s shared by Mingma’s very international team consisting of climbers from China, Macedonia, Iran, US and Argentina. Above basecamp I will be doing my own carries, program and sort of climbing by myself. In reality, I am expecting to work together with all the teams on the mountain for added safety and changes to summit. Annapurna is a very dangerous mountain and I believe team-effort will be the key to success this time. I just bumped into Carlos Soria and the Spanish team in Thamel and am happy to be on the mountain with these lovely people.

So tomorrow on 3rd we are flying first to Pokhara from where we drive up Kali Gandaki valley to Tatopani. From Tatopani we are flewn to Annapurna Basecamp by helicopter on the morning of 4th.
I will be posting on my blog at www.samulimansikka.com, Twitter and Instagram so make sure to follow my progress on Annapurna!

Best wishes to all!

Samuli