on November 27, 2017
Big Congrats to Suzanne (Sunny) Stroeer for breaking the women’s FKT on the Annapurna Circuit. by over 14 hours, finishing ~November 19th. Sunny finished in 3 days, 23 hours and 39 minutes. The previous time was held by Patricia Franco and Taylor in fall 2016. We will add a link to her full trip report here when we have it, but for now some details passed on to us by Sunny: (Update: here is the trip report!)
- Suunto track: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move186945221
- DeLorme track: https://share.garmin.com/SunnyStroeer
- Suunto animation of the loop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A54KMcexofs
- Proboard documentation on Annapurna Circuit FKTs (expect Sunny’s report to show up here):
Strategy
- Wednesday 12pm noon start in Besisahar (bus station)
- arrive Jagat at 5:30pm
- rest/sleep 6hrs
- Thursday morning (really Wednesday night) 11:30pm depart Jagat
- arrive Manang 4:55pm
- rest/sleep 12hrs
- Friday morning 5am depart Manang
- arrive Kagbeni 5:20pm
- rest/sleep 12:40hrs
- Saturday morning 6am depart Kagbeni
- arrive Dana 6pm
- rest/sleep 6hrs
- Sunday morning (Saturday night) midnight depart Dana
- arrive Nayapul 11:39am – DONE!!
Time: 3 days, 23 hours and 39 minutes all in all.
Style: I was solo but supported: I ate tea house meals and bought lots of Tibetan bread and snickers bars along the way
I stayed on the jeep track until Bahundanda, then tried to maximize trail time. Key sections that I missed…
- Before Tal / near Tal Phedi while in the dark – I didn’t realize there was a trail turnoff and stayed on the road until just before Tal. Which actually added a bit of elevation that the trail wouldn’t have had I think!!
- Coming down from Thorong La, between Muktinath and Kagbeni I navigated through Jarkot and Khingar – didn’t realize I needed to turn off in Muktinath to avoid the asphalt road, until it was too late.
- Neither one of those were intentional, just poor execution. That said… had I done the whole thing “properly” on trail I presume I would have been ~2hrs slower due to the added length and difficulty of the Muktinath-Kagbeni variation.
I did do the climb up to Upper Pisang and Gyaru, as well as climbing up and staying on trail on the east side of the valley past Jomson – going through Tini (?) and the monastery over to Chairo. I did not climb Radio Tower Pass, per beta from Seth about the 2014 attempt.