Things to Do in Pokhara in February

The Annapurna, Langtang, Everest, and Upper Mustang regions represent Nepal's four cardinal trekking theatres. This operator lets you choose among them from a single Pokhara staging point. Each route has its own texture. The rhododendron corridors of Annapurna, still bare in February, are threaded with frost that crunches underfoot at altitude. The wind-scoured trans-Himalayan desert of Upper Mustang features red-ochre cliffs and crumbling cave monasteries. They recall a Tibetan landscape sealed off from the outside world until the 1990s. The Langtang valley offers glacial moraines and cheese factories humming at the edge of the tree line. The Khumbu approach to Everest is where the air thins and the scale of the icefalls defies the camera. February's dry skies and low precipitation keep these trails in prime condition. Reduced foot traffic means teahouse stops feel less like queuing and more like arrival.

The walk up to Sarangkot village begins on a steep road above Pokhara's lakeside strip. Within thirty minutes the tourist economy drops away entirely. This tour leads through smallholder coffee terraces where Arabica bushes grow in the shade of orange trees. The sharp green scent of unripe cherries mixes with woodsmoke from farmhouse hearths. You sit on a family porch while your host roasts beans in a blackened pan over an open flame. The crackle and pop of the roast fills a silence otherwise broken only by roosters and the distant thrum of a radio. The coffee itself is tangy and light-bodied. Nothing like the commercial blends sold in Lakeside cafés. The conversation, through a guide who translates, covers crop cycles, village water politics, and the economics of selling to Kathmandu middlemen versus roasting at home. February's cool mornings make the hot cup welcome. The Annapurna panorama from the family's terrace is unobstructed in the dry-season clarity.

The eight-day Annapurna Base Camp trek is the signature route out of Pokhara. February is one of the sharpest months to walk it. The trail climbs from subtropical farmland, terraced rice paddies and banana groves near Nayapul, through dense rhododendron forest where the twisted trunks are draped in pale moss. It breaks above the tree line into a glacial amphitheatre ringed by peaks over 7,000 metres. At base camp itself, the cold is serious. Expect overnight temperatures well below freezing. Your sleeping bag will be stiff with frost. Your water bottle will be solid by morning. The payoff is an almost theatrical clarity. The south face of Annapurna I, the tenth-highest mountain on earth, fills the sky directly overhead. Its ice walls groan audibly in the cold. Machhapuchhre's unclimbed summit stands to the east, close enough to see individual seracs catching the first light. The smell of the high camp is clean stone and kerosene from the teahouse stove. The silence between gusts is absolute.

Poon Hill is the accessible counterpart to Annapurna Base Camp. It is a four-day private trek that delivers a 360-degree Himalayan panorama without the altitude strain or the multi-week commitment. The route climbs from Nayapul through the villages of Tikhedhunga and Ghorepani. Stone-flagged paths wind between farmhouses. The air carries the sweet, slightly resinous scent of sal wood burning in cooking fires. The final push to Poon Hill's summit viewpoint at 3,210 metres is a pre-dawn affair. You leave Ghorepani in the dark, headlamp picking out frosted stone steps, and arrive at the top as the eastern sky begins to colour. In February, the cold at the summit is biting. Your fingers will ache around the camera. The reward is an unbroken skyline from Dhaulagiri in the west to Annapurna South in the east. The snow peaks turn from grey to gold to white as the sun clears the horizon. The descent through Tadapani offers warmer air and thick forest where langur monkeys crash through the canopy overhead.

The road from Pokhara to Jomsom and onward to Muktinath follows the Kali Gandaki gorge, the deepest river valley on earth. It slices between the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri massifs. This private round-trip transfer replaces what was historically a gruelling multi-day trek or a terrifying small-plane flight. You get a driven journey through a landscape that shifts from green valley floor to arid, wind-carved canyon within a few hours. The gorge walls rise vertically in places. Layered sediment bands in rust and charcoal mark geological time. The river below is a grey-green braid of glacial meltwater audible even from the road. Muktinath itself sits at 3,800 metres. 108 stone waterspouts shaped like bull heads pour icy spring water into a courtyard backed by snow peaks. The eternal flame of Jwala Mai, natural gas burning behind a thin waterfall, flickers in a grotto beside the temple. The hiss of gas and splash of water sound oddly domestic against the scale of the surrounding mountains.

The three-day Poon Hill trek is the compressed version of the four-day route. It works for travellers with limited time who still want to stand on a Himalayan summit viewpoint. The itinerary is tighter. The first day's climb from Nayapul to Ghorepani is long and gains significant elevation. Stone staircases test the knees as you pass through villages where chickens scatter off the trail. The warm, earthy smell of buffalo dung plaster dries on freshly resurfaced house walls. You sleep in Ghorepani. You climb Poon Hill for sunrise on day two. Then you descend through oak and rhododendron forest to Tadapani, where the trail is soft with leaf litter and the temperature feels almost balmy after the summit cold. The final day drops back to the road head. By afternoon you are sitting in a Pokhara lakeside café with Machhapuchhre reflected in the still water of Phewa Lake. The altitude headache fades with each sip of masala tea.