It was still cloudy in the narrow valley when we woke up, but the clouds began to lift as we had breakfast.

Today was to be a long day of climbing, gaining 1200 meters (4000 feet) to Annapurna Base Camp. At this stage, however, pure elevation gain is not hard for us, and we found the hiking fairly easy.

We stopped for lunch at the lodges at the intermediate place called Machhupuchhare Base Camp, a misnomer since no one is allowed to climb that sacred peak. MBC is just inside the mountain gates of the Annapurna Sanctuary, a huge glacial valley surrounded by mountains.

We were pleasantly surprised that the afternoon clouds never appeared. These had been a standard feature of every day on this side of the mountain, and we fully expected to do our final climb in the fog. Instead, we had beautiful views all day of both Machhupuchhare and Annapurna I, the highest summit now clearly visible for the first time in the whole circuit. Although we had been circling it for 18 days, the summit is blocked from the north by another high ridge called the Great Barrier. But now in the center of the range, its massive south face looked across the valley.

The lodges at Annapurna Base Camp are surprisingly comfortable, with a real baking oven for the pizza I had been dreaming about for several days.

The sunset on Machhupuchhare and the other eastern mountains was quite beautiful, particularly the reddish alpenglow that appeared a few minutes after the sun went down. After dinner, I was also able to take some pictures by moonlight.