Larke Pass Trek

Welcome to Nepal. You land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m), where our representative meets you in the arrivals hall and drives you to your hotel in Thamel.

Your guide joins you for the briefing. We go through the fourteen-day plan, the restricted area permit and the passport photographs it needs, the pass day and how it is run, and the kit list — with particular attention to your sleeping bag, because the night at Dharamsala is the coldest of the trek. Anything missing can be bought or hired a few minutes' walk from the hotel.

The rest of the day is free. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A long day in the jeep, and the only way into the Budhi Gandaki. We leave early on the Prithvi Highway, turn north at Dhading Besi, and follow an increasingly rough hill road through Arughat and Soti Khola.

The last three hours are slow — a single-track road cut into the gorge wall, with the river a long way below and the driver taking blind corners on the horn. It is spectacular and occasionally alarming, and it saves a full day of walking on the old trail.

Machha Khola (870 m) — 'fish river' — is a line of lodges along the water where the road runs out. Around 8–9 hours including stops. Overnight at Machha Khola.

The first walking day, following the Budhi Gandaki upstream through a gorge that tightens as you go.

The trail crosses to the west bank and climbs over a ridge to Khorlabesi, then passes the hot springs at Tatopani where the river runs warm out of the rock. Beyond it the valley narrows and the path is cut into the cliff, crossing the river repeatedly on suspension bridges high above the water.

The gradient is gentle but the day is constant up and down, with staircases carved into the rock in the tighter sections. Jagat (1,340 m) is a neat village of flagstone streets and stone houses, and the checkpoint where your restricted area permit is inspected for the first time. Around 6–7 hours. Overnight at Jagat.

A long day through the narrowest part of the gorge, and the point where the culture starts to change.

From Jagat the trail climbs to Sirdibas and crosses the river on a long suspension bridge to Philim, a substantial Gurung village on a shelf of terraced fields. Above Philim the route enters a canyon so tight that the path is bolted to the rock in places, with the river white below.

At Ekle Bhatti the Tsum Valley branches north, and the main trail turns west into the upper Budhi Gandaki. Bamboo gives way to pine, the first mani walls appear beside the path, and the houses change to flat-roofed stone.

Deng (1,860 m) is a small cluster of lodges where the valley opens slightly. Around 6–7 hours. Overnight at Deng.

A steady climb into Tibetan country, gaining nearly 800 m through forest and gorge.

The trail crosses and recrosses the river through Ghap, where the mani walls carry carved Buddhist scripture on both faces and the trail passes between them. Above Ghap the forest is fir, rhododendron and bamboo, and the valley walls close in for a final steep section beside the water.

Namrung (2,630 m) is announced by a stone kani gateway painted inside with Buddhist murals — the traditional entrance to the upper valley. Beyond it the architecture, dress and language are Tibetan, and the village looks out on Himalchuli (7,893 m) and Ganesh Himal.

Around 6–7 hours. Overnight at Namrung.

A shorter day with a spectacular finish, and the first sight of the mountain the trek is built around.

The trail climbs through barley terraces and past long mani walls to Lihi and Sho, both compact villages of flat-roofed houses with firewood stacked on the roofs and prayer flags on the ridge poles. The valley opens out and the walking is easy and level for long stretches.

Lho (3,180 m) arrives in the early afternoon, arranged on terraces beneath Ribung Gompa. The short climb to the monastery before sunset is the thing to do here: from the courtyard the view is straight up the valley to Manaslu (8,163 m), the eighth highest mountain in the world, with its summit ridge catching the last of the light.

Around 4–5 hours. Overnight at Lho.

A short day, deliberately, because the altitude is starting to count.

The trail climbs gently through fir forest to Shyala, a village in an extraordinary position with Manaslu on one side, Himalchuli and Ngadi Chuli behind, and Peak 29 across the valley. Many groups stop here for tea simply because of where it is.

Beyond Shyala the valley broadens into pasture and the walking is level to Samagaon (3,530 m), the largest and oldest village in Nubri: a tight cluster of wooden and stone houses, a long mani wall, yaks in the fields, and a community that has farmed and traded across the Tibetan border for centuries.

Arrive by early afternoon and rest — tomorrow is an acclimatisation day, not a rest day. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Samagaon.

The day that makes the pass possible, spent climbing high and coming back down to sleep.

The main option is the walk to Manaslu Base Camp (4,800 m), a steep four to five hour climb past Birendra Lake — a milky turquoise glacial lake below the Manaslu Glacier — and up the moraine to the expedition site. It is a serious day out with 1,300 m of ascent, and the reward is standing at the foot of an 8,000 m face.

The gentler alternative is Pungyen Gompa, a monastery on a shelf east of the village with a direct view of the Manaslu glacier, about three hours round trip. Either one gets you above 4,000 m and back.

Your guide watches the group closely today, because how you handle this walk is the best indicator of how the pass will go. Overnight at Samagaon.

A short, easy day north up the valley — the pattern that keeps working at this height.

The trail leaves Samagaon past the mani wall and follows the Budhi Gandaki through juniper scrub and open pasture, with the river braiding across a wide gravel bed. The old trade route to Tibet branches east at the Larkya Bazaar ruins, where Tibetan traders still cross over the Gya La in summer.

Samdo (3,875 m) sits on a shelf above the river, a compact village of about forty houses built by Tibetan refugees in the 1960s. It is the last permanent settlement before the pass, and the border is a three-hour walk north.

You arrive by lunchtime. The afternoon is free for a short walk up the ridge behind the village for the view into Tibet — good acclimatisation and worth the hour. Around 3–4 hours. Overnight at Samdo.

The shortest walking day of the trek and, for most people, the least comfortable night.

The trail drops to cross the Budhi Gandaki and then climbs steadily across barren slopes of scree and dry grass, past a ruined kani and along the moraine of the Larkya Glacier. There is no shelter and no village, and the wind picks up through the middle of the day.

Dharamsala (4,475 m), also called Larke Phedi, is a handful of stone huts and dormitory rooms with a kitchen shack — no heating, basic bedding, and shared outside toilets. It exists purely so that groups can be on the pass at dawn.

Only three to four hours of walking, so you arrive by lunchtime with the afternoon to rest, drink and eat as much as you can manage. Your guide runs through the morning plan: a 4 am start, layers on before you leave the hut, and a slow steady pace. Overnight at Dharamsala.

The big day. We leave Dharamsala at around four in the morning, head-torches on, to be over the pass before the afternoon wind.

The climb is long rather than technical: a steady four to five hours up moraine and snow beside the Larkya Glacier, with false summits that test the patience. The cold before sunrise is the hardest part, and the pace is deliberately slow.

The Larke La (5,106 m) is a broad saddle strung with prayer flags, and the view west is the reward for the whole trek — Himlung Himal (7,126 m), Cheo Himal, Gyaji Kang and the Annapurna range beyond, with the Larkya Glacier below.

The descent is steep, long and loose: 1,400 m down snow and then moraine to the meadows of Bimthang (3,720 m), where there are lodges, grass and yaks. Ten to twelve hours in total. Overnight at Bimthang.

A long descent out of the mountains and back into settled, green country.

The morning starts with the view back at Manaslu from the meadow, then the trail crosses the Dudh Khola and drops through rhododendron and pine forest — a striking change after a week of rock and barley terraces. Below Karche the valley opens into farmland and the first road-connected villages appear.

Dharapani (1,860 m) is where the Manaslu route joins the Annapurna Circuit, and after ten days in a restricted area the sudden appearance of jeeps, bakeries and other trekkers is a genuine jolt.

Around 7–8 hours, mostly downhill and hard on the knees. Overnight at Dharapani.

A long travel day, starting with the roughest road on the trip.

A jeep takes the group down the Marsyangdi to Besisahar — three to four hours of genuinely bad road, fording streams and crawling along ledges above the river, with the compensation of a valley that gets greener by the kilometre.

From Besisahar the highway is paved and the drive to Kathmandu (1,400 m) takes a further five to six hours through Dumre and along the Prithvi Highway, with a lunch stop en route.

You arrive in the evening and transfer to your hotel. This is the night for a celebration dinner with your guide — the crew leaves the group here. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Your last day in Nepal. If your flight leaves later in the day, Boudhanath Stupa is the natural place to finish a Manaslu trek — the Tibetan Buddhist culture around the stupa is the same tradition you walked through in Nubri.

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

In fourteen days you have crossed the Himalaya on foot, walked from subtropical gorge to a 5,106 m pass, and spent a week in one of the last genuinely Tibetan valleys on the Nepali side of the border. If that is the kind of trekking you want more of, the Tsum Valley next door and the Kanchenjunga circuit in the far east are the obvious next steps. Safe travels.