Pikey Peak 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 in the afternoon for the briefing. This is a straightforward trek to plan — no high passes, no acclimatisation schedule to manage and no Lukla flight to worry about — so the briefing is mostly about the drive to the trailhead, the standard of the lodges, and how cold the summit morning is likely to be.

We check your kit and point you at the gear shops a few streets away if anything is missing; a down jacket and a warm sleeping bag are the two items people most often need to hire.

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

An early start east out of the valley. The road climbs over the rim at Dhulikhel and follows the hills through Bhitteri and Kabhre, with the Himalaya appearing and disappearing on the left, before a rougher final section to the road head at Dhap (2,350 m).

Around 4 to 5 hours of driving, with a tea stop on the way.

After lunch at Dhap the walking starts. The trail climbs steadily through rhododendron and pine forest onto the ridge, gaining around 500 m in a comfortable first afternoon and passing mani walls and chortens at every rise.

You reach Jhapre (2,820 m), a scattered ridge village, by mid-afternoon. On a clear evening the sunset light on Numbur and Karyolung from the lodge terrace is the first hint of what the summit will look like. Overnight in a lodge at Jhapre.

The main climbing day of the trek, and a beautiful one.

The trail leaves Jhapre and follows the ridge north through thinning rhododendron forest onto open country. As the trees give way to juniper scrub and yak pasture the view opens right along the chain, and by late morning you are walking with the Himalaya on your left for hours at a time.

You pass through summer grazing settlements of stone huts, and in autumn the herders are still up here with their yaks and chauri cross-breeds.

Around 5 to 6 hours brings you to Pikey Peak Base Camp (3,640 m), two simple lodges on the open hillside below the summit ridge. It is exposed and it is cold once the sun drops, so the dining room stove earns its keep. Your guide sets the summit departure time over dinner. Overnight at base camp.

The day the trek exists for. A start around 4.30 a.m. by headlamp for the climb to the summit of Pikey Peak (4,065 m) — around an hour and a half of steady walking up the ridge, cold enough that you will want every layer you brought.

The summit is strung with prayer flags, and at first light the whole Himalayan chain comes out of the dark: Dhaulagiri and the Annapurnas far to the west, then Manaslu, Ganesh Himal, Langtang, Gaurishankar, Numbur, and eastward to Everest (8,848 m), Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu and finally Kangchenjunga on the Sikkim border. Eight of the fourteen 8,000 m peaks, in one sweep.

Back at base camp for breakfast, then a long descent north and east off the ridge through forest and grazing land, dropping nearly 1,400 m to the Sherpa village of Junbesi (2,675 m).

Around 8 hours in total. Overnight in a lodge at Junbesi.

A gentler day in one of the loveliest villages in Nepal. Junbesi is a compact settlement of whitewashed, wooden-shuttered Sherpa houses around a well-kept gompa, with apple orchards and barley terraces on the slopes above and almost no vehicles.

The walk of the day goes up the valley to Thubten Choling, a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery founded after 1959 by Trulshik Rinpoche and the monks who followed him over the border from Rongbuk. Several hundred monks and nuns live there in a village of small houses around the main hall.

It is an hour and a half up and rather less back, and visitors are welcome in the assembly hall outside prayer times.

The afternoon is free in Junbesi for the village gompa, the school Hillary's trust built, or simply sitting in the sun. Overnight in Junbesi.

The last walking day, and an easy one. The trail leaves Junbesi south down the valley, crosses the river and contours through farmland and forest with the Numbur range behind you.

This is the old expedition route — every Everest party before the Lukla airstrip walked this ground on the way up from Jiri, and the trail is still lined with mani walls and chortens from that era.

You pass through the Sherpa settlements of Phera and Salung, where the walking is on level paths between stone-walled fields, before a final descent and short climb to Phaplu (2,470 m), the district headquarters.

Around 5 hours. Phaplu has a proper bazaar, a hospital, a monastery and the airstrip you fly out from, and after four nights in small lodges the hot showers are welcome. Overnight in a lodge at Phaplu.

A morning flight out. Phaplu is a considerably more reliable airstrip than Lukla — longer, lower and in a more open bowl — so delays here are the exception rather than the rule.

The 30-minute flight to Kathmandu runs west along the foothills with the Himalaya on the right the whole way, a good last look at the chain you watched from the ridge.

Transfer to your hotel in Thamel, where a hot shower and a change of clothes are the first order of business.

The afternoon is free. Thamel is on the doorstep for souvenirs and most groups meet for a farewell dinner in the evening. If the flight is delayed by weather, the road drive to Kathmandu takes eight to ten hours and we arrange it rather than lose you a day. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A slow morning in Kathmandu. If your flight is late in the day there is time for last shopping in Thamel, a walk around Durbar Square or Boudhanath, or a long breakfast.

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

If you are staying on in Nepal we are happy to arrange onward travel, a Chitwan extension, a Pokhara flight or extra hotel nights — just let us know while you are still on the trail so we can book it.

Thank you for trekking with us. Pikey is the trek people come back and tell their friends about, and we hope to see you again on a longer one.