Upper Dolpo Traverse trek Juphal to Jomsom | Gourmet Tour

Arrive in Kathmandu to be received by your trek leader and transferred to your hotel.

You will have a morning walking tour of Swayambhunath, Kathmandu Durbar Square, and Ason spice market. We fly from Kathmandu to Nepalgunj in the afternoon

The flights to Juphal are usually in the morning. The flight can be delayed by bad weather as the primary trekking season for Upper Dolpo is before and during the summer monsoon. The southwestern monsoon may be in the lower parts of Nepal. However, Dolpo is in the Trans Himalaya in the rain shadow.

It is a short flight to Juphal. We will meet our team at Juphal, and they will be busy organizing/loading our kit bags, camping gear, equipment, food on to pack animals.

We start trekking along the Thulo Bheri River. It turns northward to the Suligad River an hour into the hike. We have to register with the Shey Phoksundo National park, the largest in Nepal, at their entrance. We continue to Kageni for the night.

Our support crew will set up the campsite, make us hot drinks, and serve it in the dining tent with cookies.

This morning we walk in a northwesterly direction going upstream of the Suligad river, which comes from the Phoksundo Lake. The hike is in the beautiful forested area passing through Shyanta, Chepka, until our final stop at Rechi. Our support team will prepare and serve us lunch on the way.

This is an exciting day for us as we are going to the Turquoise Phoksundo Lake. The hike at the beginning is undulating, passing through Samduwa, and a short distance away, we will arrive at Trapiza School. The Swiss and Americans funded this school. We continue with a gentle climb until we reach Palam. The ascent gets steep from here until you reach a place to rest. You will see the sight of the raging Suligad waterfall that drops 167 meters. We will also get the first glimpse of the massive Kanjiroba 6612 meter peak. Kanjirolwa means the big mountain with a ponytail in Tibetan. We will also see part of the Turquoise Phoksundo Lake. We will reach the main village of Ringmo and Phoksundo Lake an hour later.

We will take an easy walk to the ancient Bon monastery called Thasung Tsoling Gompa. The whole of Ringmo village are parishioners of the ancient Bon religion that predates Tibetan Buddhism.

We start our morning after breakfast by walking on the Lake’s Western trail, which starts going uphill. Every step and corner showcases the absolute beauty of the Lake. We will reach the highest point of the path at above 4000 meters from where the trail started contouring on a downhill trend bringing us to pine and Rhododendron forest until we reach the lakeside to the North of Ringmo village. A couple of Herder’s tents also doubles as restaurants, shops, and even lodging for travellers during the summer. Our camp is just a short hour away from the north side of the Lake.

We trek upstream of the Phoksundo river towards our first pass in the pine forest towards the lower base camp. We turn to our right to the Tuk Kyasa River. It involved some rough trail and crossed the river by stepping and leaping on rocks. The valley widened after 30 minutes, and we reached the intermediate campsite about 2 hours 30 minutes later. It was just enough for our four sleeping tents, kitchen, dining, and toilet tent. It was a lovely spot with a stream close by for our kitchen staff for cooking etc.

This is a big day that involves crossing the first of the six passes above 5000 meters. Kang La is also known as Nagdalo La at 5350 meters. We ascend for an hour before reaching the high camp. We continue to climb on a steady ascent mixture to some short steep climbs for 90 minutes before the trail becomes steep. We continued on this steep and challenging climb for slightly more than two hours before reaching Kang La’s top. It can be windy and cold at the top of the pass. We might see the Manaslu range to the south-east of the pass and the stark but beautiful hills that define Dolpo to the north. The first 20 minutes is a narrow, steep drop before the trail started contouring in a downward trend for 90 minutes, where we stopped for a break on a beautiful open space with a stream next to it. We stop before Shey Gompa.

We continue descending to Shey Gompa. We get there within a couple of hours after leaving our campsite. We have a short uphill hike from the river that brings us to a beautifully maintained camp. An elderly couple does a superb job managing the campsite and monastery as caretakers.
On the opposite side of Shey Monastery is Crystal Mountain that broods above everything else. It is the holiest mountain in Dolpo and is considered the next holy mountain after Mount Kailash in Tibet.

We continue descending to Shey Gompa. We get there within a couple of hours after leaving our campsite. We have a short uphill hike from the river that brings us to a beautifully maintained camp. An elderly couple does a superb job managing the campsite and monastery as caretakers.
On the opposite side of Shey Monastery is Crystal Mountain that broods above everything else. It is the holiest mountain in Dolpo and is considered the next holy mountain after Mount Kailash in Tibet.

We start the morning with a short climb until the plateau is reached. The trail is undulating, and we contour the hills until the descend to Saldang, the most significant village on this trek. We will see several neighbouring villages and many paths in the distance from the pass.

Rest day at Saldang. You have two options for this day:

i) You can choose to do a full hike to Yangjer Monastery with a packed lunch and return in the late afternoon.

ii) You can use the morning to wander around the village, visit the 500-year-old Samye Choling Monastery in the lower part of Saldang Village. Come back for lunch, and the boys will heat water for you to take showers in our shower tent.

The trek to Khomas starts with a descent to the river and a steady climb to Khoma pass at 4460 meters. We will see Khomas village from the pass. We can take it easy and enjoy the scenery, warm sun, and the lack of wind while waiting for the mules and our staff to catch up. We started hiking down after a relaxing 45-minute rest, stopped by a grassy pasture for lunch, and continued down after that to the village. Khomas village is in an open valley, and it is a relatively large settlement.

We start the day’s hike with an hour of traverse and followed by a drop to the river before the trail goes uphill to Shimen la’s top at 4260 meters. The path continues undulating for 45 minutes before coming to the end of the pass, and we can see Shimen village. You can see an old airstrip when flights used to take place from Nepalgunj directly to Shimen in the 60s and 70s. The distance is quite deceiving as it is the altitude; the thin air makes things appear closer than they are. This is the lowest village since you left the Phoksundo camp, and we could feel the heat. We are now in the Panzang (Ban Tshang by locals) river valley.

The valley is broader with more rolling hills compared to the sharp ridges and deep valleys before this. We will pass through several Chortens, interesting rock carvings on the rocks by the river.

Interestingly the Nepal government sends ration through Tibet to the border. The villagers go to the border, buy the subsidized ration, pack them on their animals, and bring them home. This keeps the cost of transportation lower than transporting within Nepal. We camp next to a stream beyond the village of Tinje, another beautiful spot two hours after leaving Tinje on the fork in the trail.

We leave our wilderness campsite greeted by numerous Marmots whistling to let the others know of our presence. We take a left on the fork and continue for several hours. You will have a packed lunch, which gives you the freedom to stop at a suitable time and place to take a break and have your meal.

The trail is a gentle and gradual climb, to begin with. We might have to take our boots off to cross a river. We probably could have skipped on the rocks, but I believe in prevention rather than cure. We get into two different valleys before we start our ascent towards the high camp of Mo La, our third pass of the trek. We would have been heading East for the past few days by now. Our campsite is at 4880 meters.

The hike to Mo La 5030 is relatively comfortable, and the final climb isn’t that difficult. It takes about an hour to reach the top of the pass. You will get the views of Dhaulagiri’s north face as you descend from Mo La pass. This is the highest mountain on this trek. The hike down to Charka is very scenic but deceptively longer than it seems. Charka derives from Tibetan (Chaa Ka – good salt). There is a source of salt on the outskirts of the village, and a stream flows through it. All animals go there to get their salt fix. Our staff will restock on dry ration, kerosene, some fresh vegetables, etcetera for the next three days: you will be camping in the middle of nowhere away from the villages.

We cross the Charka Tulsi River and walk on a very new and broad trail for about an hour before going to the bridge to cross the river, followed by a short but strenuous climb on a dusty path. Once we are on the top, the terrain appears lovely and green suitable for a golf course. The trail continues on a gentle slope for another 90 minutes. Soon after this, the trail goes through landslip areas where the path was narrow and rocky. We reach our campsite an hour after our lunch spot. This was once again a wide-open valley with a vast flat ground for camping with two relatively large clean streams.

We have broken a long day into two easier days to make it less strenuous and give you time to acclimatize to high altitude. It is an easy hike of about 4 hours to our camp at Nulungsumda Kharka at 4987 meters. It started getting cloudy from this onwards. Westerly winds blew clouds to the East. The pony men and local guide began voicing their concern about the weather changing and rightly so. Every few years, cyclones from the Bay of Bengal, bring unseasonal snow to the high passes, and some people, including trekkers and locals, die. I reassured them that the bad weather usually comes from the East, and these clouds were travelling West.

This is a “huge” day involving crossing over three passes, namely Niwas La 5125 meters, Jungben La 5550 meters, and a nameless pass at 5400 meters. It starts with a flattish terrain with a small climb to Niwas La. We get views of The Sadache Himal range. The trail continues in a flattish manner until the last 60 minutes to the top of Jungben la 5550 meters. We will get there with relative ease. The downhill is winding and steep for some time before it eases with a small climb to the last pass. The descent from here is on a trail with loose shale, screes, rocks, and relentless steep for what seemed like forever.

We begin with a small climb and a steep descent to Kyalungpa Khola (River). We walk past Juniper trees along a dusty path, and the active Mustang wind can make it worse. It is quite a steep drop down on some exposed and slippery trail until we get to the bridge. We have a short climb of about 30 minutes before the trail levels out until we got to a small pass. We have to go down to a river before a short climb for about an hour before reaching Santa (Shang Tak).

We begin the day with a steep uphill climb to 4110 meters and hike on a newly constructed road. The road contours to the top of Bhimen La 4600 meters. The pass’ top’s views are breathtaking; Upper Mustang to the North, Peaks of Nar Phu valley to the North East, Thorung peak, and pass to the East, Muktinath, Jharkot, Kagbeni beneath the Thorung pass, Nilgiri peaks to the South East and the Kali Gandaki riverbed. It can be a very windy and dusty trek to Phalyak village.

We Hike to the main road after crossing a very long suspension bridge over the Kali Gandaki River. We have a flattish hike all the way to Jomsom after crossing the bridge near Ekle Bhatti.

We have an extra night in case the flight from Jomsom is affected by bad weather. If the flights are cancelled, we will hire a jeep and drive to Pokhara.

We have the morning free in Pokhara to relax or go for a massage after this long trek. We fly to Kathmandu in the afternoon.

You will be brought to the airport three hours before your international flight time.