Jomsom Muktinath Trek

You arrive at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m) and are met by our representative for the drive to your hotel in Thamel.

Your guide runs the pre-trek briefing. The Jomsom Muktinath trek is the gentlest way into the Kali Gandaki — a short, moderate walk through the deepest gorge on earth to one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Himalaya. There is no restricted-area permit and no serious altitude, with the highest point at Muktinath at 3,800 m.

Because this is the Himalayan rain shadow, the kit priorities are unusual: wind protection, sunglasses and sun cream matter far more than waterproofs, and something to keep dust out of your face is worth having for the afternoons. The remainder of the day is free to rest or explore Thamel. Overnight in Kathmandu.

We leave after breakfast on the Prithvi Highway, heading west out of the Kathmandu Valley and down into the Trishuli gorge, which the road follows for much of the 200 km to Pokhara (822 m).

The drive fills most of the day and is consistently scenic — terraced hillsides, roadside towns stacked with produce, suspension footbridges over the river, and rafting groups putting in at Charaudi. We stop for lunch at a riverside restaurant.

Pokhara appears in the late afternoon, warm and green beside Phewa Lake with the Annapurna massif standing directly above the town. Tomorrow's flight leaves at first light and depends on wind in the Kali Gandaki, so bags are packed tonight. Overnight in Pokhara.

A dawn departure, and necessarily so — the wind that funnels up the Kali Gandaki closes the Jomsom airstrip by mid-morning on most days of the year.

The 20-minute flight is among the most dramatic scheduled flights anywhere. The aircraft tracks north straight up the gorge, passing between Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) and Annapurna I (8,091 m) — two eight-thousanders barely 35 km apart, with the riverbed more than 5,000 m below their summits. This is what makes the Kali Gandaki the deepest gorge in the world.

You land at Jomsom (2,700 m) in a landscape that looks nothing like the Nepal you left an hour ago: bare brown hillsides, a vast braided gravel riverbed, and almost no trees. The rest of the day is for settling in and acclimatising gently. The Mustang Eco Museum is a worthwhile hour. Overnight in Jomsom.

An easy first walk of about three hours, deliberately short to let you adjust to the altitude and the wind.

The trail heads north along the wide gravel bed of the Kali Gandaki, mostly level. It is worth walking with your eyes down part of the time: this riverbed is the best-known source of shaligrams in the world — black spiral ammonite fossils weathering out of the Tethys seabed that was pushed up to form the Himalaya. Hindus revere them as manifestations of Vishnu, and they are found nowhere else in such numbers.

The wind rises through the morning and will be behind you heading north, which is a mercy. Kagbeni (2,800 m) appears as a sudden patch of green: a compact medieval village of mud-brick houses, covered alleyways you have to duck through, and a red-walled monastery, standing at the confluence of the Jhong Khola and the main river. It is the checkpoint for Upper Mustang. Overnight in Kagbeni.

The main climbing day — a full kilometre of ascent from the river up into the Jhong Khola valley.

The trail leaves Kagbeni heading east and climbs steadily through wind-sculpted, almost lunar country. It passes the village of Khingar and then Jharkot (3,550 m), which deserves a stop: a ruined fort on a bluff above the trail, a red-walled Sakya monastery, and orchards of apple and apricot that are startlingly green against the bare hillsides.

A final pull brings you to Muktinath (3,800 m) in the afternoon. The Thorong La (5,416 m) comes down into the village from the north, so you will usually meet Annapurna Circuit trekkers arriving from the pass. Evening light on Dhaulagiri and Nilgiri to the south is the best view of the trek. Overnight in Muktinath.

An early start at the temple complex, before the pilgrim buses arrive. Muktinath is one of very few Himalayan sites sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists — Mukti Kshetra, the place of liberation, one of the 108 Divya Desams of Vishnu; and Chumig Gyatsa, the hundred waters, associated with Guru Rinpoche.

Behind the main temple, spring water runs through 108 bull-headed spouts set in a curved wall, and pilgrims bathe beneath every one in sequence — a formidable undertaking in the cold at 3,800 m. In the Jwala Mai temple nearby, a natural gas flame burns above running spring water, fire and water together, which is why the site is held to be where all five elements meet.

We then begin the long descent, dropping through Jharkot and Khingar and down the Jhong valley to rejoin the Kali Gandaki, then south to Jomsom (2,700 m) with the wind full in our faces for the last stretch. Overnight in Jomsom.

Rather than fly, this itinerary takes the road south — which is a genuinely rewarding day in its own right, and immune to the flight cancellations that Jomsom is prone to.

The jeep runs down the Kali Gandaki, and the transformation over the course of the journey is extraordinary. You start in bare high desert at Jomsom, pass the whitewashed Thakali village of Marpha (2,670 m) with its apple orchards, then Tukuche and Kalopani where the first pines appear. Below Ghasa the gorge narrows dramatically and the vegetation turns subtropical — you are dropping through the deepest part of the world's deepest canyon, between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna.

At Tatopani (1,200 m) there are natural hot springs beside the river, and the road then follows the Kali Gandaki and Modi Khola down to Beni and on to Pokhara (822 m). It is a long day on rough road for much of it. Overnight in Pokhara.

A relaxed morning by the lake. If you are up early, sunrise over Annapurna and Machhapuchhre from the lakeside is worth it — you flew up the gorge between those peaks a few days ago. A rowing boat on Phewa Lake or the walk up to the World Peace Pagoda both fit before breakfast.

We then drive east on the Prithvi Highway to Kathmandu (1,400 m), following the Marsyangdi and Trishuli rivers back through the gorges. It is a full day with a lunch stop, arriving in the capital in the late afternoon.

After transferring to your hotel the evening is free — a hot shower, a good meal, and last-minute shopping in Thamel, where Marpha apple brandy is easy to find if you developed a taste for it. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Your last day in Nepal. If your flight leaves later there is time for one more site in the valley. Pashupatinath, the great Shiva temple on the banks of the Bagmati, is the natural companion to a trek that visited Muktinath — both are among the most significant Hindu pilgrimage sites in the country. Boudhanath and Swayambhunath are both nearby.

Our representative collects you from your hotel and drives you to Tribhuvan International Airport around three hours before your scheduled departure.

The Jomsom Muktinath trek is short but takes in a remarkable amount: a flight between two eight-thousanders, the fossil beds of the Kali Gandaki, the medieval alleys of Kagbeni, and the 108 spouts and eternal flame at Muktinath. If the high desert appealed, Upper Mustang and the walled city of Lo Manthang are the obvious next trip. Safe travels.