Upper Dolpo Trek

Your arrival in Kathmandu is the first day of the trip. We will welcome you at the arrival gate of Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu and transfer you to the trip hotel. You will have free time mostly on your own today. We will surely offer you necessary guidance on wandering around on your arrival time. We will also brief you about the entire adventure trip and answer your questions if you have any. Feel at comfort; relax and try to acclimate in the Nepalese atmosphere. Things may look and feel completely strange to you but that’s the beauty of a new place so find yourself at easy and slowly soak into the local ambience.

Kathmandu has a history of more than 2,000 years. We will take you for a tour of the historical, cultural and spiritual places in Kathmandu that are enlisted in the cultural heritage list. A guided visit to Swoyambhunath, Patan Durbar Square, Pashupatinath and Boudhanath will give you an understanding of the history, culture, spiritual practice and lifestyle of Kathmandu valley. It will be a good starter of the trip. An insightful day of exploring the cultural and historical wonders of Kathmandu will come to end after returning back to the hotel around late afternoon.

We fly to Nepalgunj, 367 km air distance, today. This is a happening city in the mid-western Nepal and is a major trade center. Nepalgunj airport is the base for several flights in the remote hills and mountains mid-west and far-west of Nepal. Once we reach Nepalgunj and check into hotel, we can go for an exploration of the city.

We get ready and drive to airport for the flight to Juphal. Juphal airport in remote Dolpa district acts as a gateway to several other districts in the region. A spectacular Himalayan flight of about 45 minutes takes us to the starting point of our Upper Dolpo Trekking trip. Our trekking part for the day is a short walk to Dunai, the district headquarters of Dolpa. About 3 hours of gentle walk along the Bheri River takes us to Dunai where we set up our overnight camp.

We set off on a walking journey of about six hours for the day. The trail to Ankhe today passes along several beautiful places in the Phoksundo River valley. Remote but beautiful Dhera and Raha villages come along the way. We can enjoy the spectacular view of Kagmara peak too. We establish our overnight camp at Ankhe.

Our trekking today takes us to Renje where we will be higher than 3,000 meters above sea level. The day walk involves crossing of several suspension bridges. The trail passes through beautiful landscape that is typical of the remoteness of Dolpa. Despite the remoteness of the area, it is such a beautiful experience to here. We establish our camp at Renje at the elevation of around 3,100 meters above sea level.

Beautiful Phoksundo Lake, the deepest lake in Nepal, is the destination we are headed on our walk today. Walking across several beautiful places along Pungmo River, we reach Phoksundo Lake. But before reaching Phoksundo to enjoy the magical charm of the lake, we walk past many other beautiful places along the trail. The cedar forest, beautiful villages of Palam and Ringmo and the views from the trail make our walk of about five hours feel shorter. Once we reach Phoksundo Lake and establish our overnight camp, we can get lost into the beauty of the area.

We spend the day today here at and around Phoksundo Lake. Doing that, we will have two benefits – first, we can acclimatize properly to go higher in the days to come and second, we can explore more of the beauty of the lake and surrounding. We go for an exploration trip of Ringo village where we can learn more about the life style in the region. Later we come back to the lake and enjoy the serene atmosphere around here.

We are going to leave the charm of the lake behind and walk ahead on our journey. The day walk takes us to Phoksundo Khola via the western end of the lake. An uneven trail leads us towards the destination today. The trickiness of the trail involves of narrow passage, rocky crevasse and marsh filled areas. This all challenges of the trail indicate that we are in a real remote wilderness that is equally thrilling as is challenging.

It is a challenging day as we are going to cover about 1000 meters of elevation in the high altitude trail. The walk from Phoksundo Khola to Phoksundo Bhanjyang is going to be of about six hours of challenge. Walking on the glacial valley, pastures and mountain terrains takes us eventually to Phoksundo Bhanyang at the elevation of 4,400 meters above sea level. The day brings some fabulous views of mountains that help us take the challenge and reach the destination.

On the walk to Shey Gompa today, we are going to cross a high mountain pass called Kang La pass that stands at the elevation of 5,151 meters above sea level. Kang La pass, one of the three high passes we cross on the trekking journey, gives us a tough challenge to climb it but rewards with beautiful view up from the top. After walking up to the top and enjoying the view from there, we descend to the river and walk ahead towards Shey Gompa.

We spend an extra day here at Shey Gompa to acclimatize and explore the surrounding. Our exploration of Shey village and the Gompa gets us closer to the Bonpo culture, life style and spiritual vibrations there. The exploration is an amazing insight of the region that helps us understand the region more. Hiking exploration helps us get ready for another pass climb tomorrow.

Our trekking today involves another walk over high mountain pass, the highest of three that we are crossing on this trip. On our walk to Namduna Gaun today, we are ascending to Saldang La pass that stands at the elevation of 5,200 meters above sea level. Although it’s a challenging walk up to the top, we enjoy it when we reach the pass. Later, we start descending towards Namdung Gaun and along the trail we can experience beautiful views before reaching the destination.

We set off early morning on the walk that takes us much lower to what we are now at Namduna Gaun. We walk to Saldang today. Although the elevation change takes us lower, the walk goes uphill first before starting a long descent to Saldang village. Saldang village is a strategically located on the trade route. It is one of the affluent villages in the region.

Our walk in this Upper Dolpo Trekking journey has many wonderful things for us. While trekking towards Sibu village, we come across beautiful Namdo village where we can explore Namdo monastery. We also come along small chhortens, mani walls and beautifully terraced fields. We walk to Sibu along the river bank after Namdo.

We walk to Jeng La Phedi today. The walk goes along Nam Khong Khola towards the destination. The final section is an uphill that starts from a confluence. The uphill section is pretty challenging walk at this high altitude terrain. We eventually reach Jeng La Phedi and establish our camp to spend the night.

We cross the third of three mountain passes of the trip on our walk to Tokyo Gaun today. The first part of the walk today towards Jeng La pass goes steep uphill and gives us a tough challenge. But the challenge gets rewarded with spectacular view of the mountains from the pass. Later the trail descend towards Tarapa valley and runs along to Tokyo Gaun.

Dho Tarap is our destination for today. We go for a visit to a monastery here before setting off on the walking journey of the day. About five hours of walk brings us more wonders of Dolpa that add to our experience. We are now on the way down, slowly descending on the altitude level on each day’s camp site.

Our walk today goes through river bank and narrow gorge section. The walk today takes us to Serkam. We can enjoy more of the wonders in Dolpa. Simplicity of life style, untouched civilization and nature, wonderful views and many other wonders make our day beautiful, adding to making the trip wonderful.

A descent awaits us on our walk today. While walking to Khani Gaun, the trail gets tricky yet interesting. About six hours of striving along the trail and enjoying the views eventually takes us to Khani Gaun.

We take our breakfast at the camp and get ready for the walk of the day. We trek to Tarakot today via Lalberi village. Some forested parts on the trail keep us cool and give a beautiful nature walking experience. It’s relatively a shorter walk of only about four hours.

We return back to Dunai, the district headquarters of Dolpa. We trek to Lawan village and go along the Bheri River towards the destination. Ascending to Byas Gadhi and walking further uphill on the other side of the river takes finally to Dunai. A full circle of the Upper Dolpo Trek has come to an end with one more day of trekking left on the journey.

We trek back to Juphal in a short three hours of walk. We will have full day to explore Juphal once we reach there. We have come to the end of a beautiful trekking trip of Upper Dolpo where we experienced some wonderful thing in the wilderness. Apart from the adventure trekking, a rich cultural immersion during the trip makes this a life time experience. Although an extremely remote region, the trek brought an inspiring experience for our life.

We board our flight to Nepalgunj on a small plane from Juphal airport. Later, we board the connecting flight to Kathmandu at Nepalgunj airport. Once in Kathmandu, we can go for some relaxing walk around the streets of Kathmandu.

This is an extra day on the trip to compensate any possible delays on the trip.

As the last day on this beautiful adventure trip, we will drive you to the airport for your departure flight as per your flight schedule. If this is not your departure day, the service for this trip ends here. If you have extra days to spend in Nepal and need any other assistance, please do let us know. We will certainly help you in whatever way we can.

The walking adventure to the Upper Dolpo goes through the trail that meanders up and down the mountains frequently. Although this is not an extremely difficult trip, you will certainly feel some challenges of walking in the high altitude during the trip. We would rate it as a difficult trip in difficulty level as you will be walking over high mountain passes over 5000 meters above sea level.

Walking hours vary from day to day on this trip. You walk from 4-6 hours every day depending on the distance you cover. You can expect the walking hours to be around 5 hours on average.

Since it is walking adventure trip, you do not need any climbing skills, experience or equipment. However, you will need a high level of determination to traverse the mountain trail in the wilderness for several days. This is just a trekking trip, not a climbing adventure.

The walking route to the Upper Dolpo region is a wilderness of the mountains. Although we find villages along the trail, staying in tented camps will be more ideal for the trip. We use the same tented camps on the scheduled places. The overnight places for each day are specified in the itinerary. However, your trip guide can change the overnight places on his/her sole discretion if s/he thinks it necessary for your comfort and better experience.

We will prepare our own foods during the adventure in the mountains.

When you go for the walking adventure trip, you will pack two different bags – one big backpack that your porter will carry for you and the other, a small daypack for yourself to carry with necessary things that you need for the day. You can refer to our Things to Carry page for a complete guide on what you need to have when you are in the mountains.