Saribung 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.

The briefing is long for this one. Your climbing guide covers the twenty-two day plan, the two restricted-area permits and the passport photographs they need, the camping routine, the technical equipment we supply, and the weather decision at Damodar Kunda. We fit boots to crampons and harnesses here rather than at 5,000 m.

Our office lodges the Upper Mustang and Nar Phu permits today, which is why the trip starts in Kathmandu rather than Pokhara. The rest of the day is free. Overnight in Kathmandu.

After breakfast we leave the Kathmandu valley on the Prithvi Highway, following the Trishuli river west through gorge country.

The drive to Pokhara (822 m) covers roughly 200 km and takes most of the day, with a lunch stop at a riverside restaurant. If you would rather not spend the day on the road, the 25-minute flight is available as an add-on.

Pokhara arrives in the late afternoon on the shore of Phewa Lake, with the Annapurnas behind it. This is the last comfortable evening before three weeks of tents and lodges.

The crew does the final load sort here. Overnight in Pokhara.

An early flight into the Kali Gandaki, through the deepest gorge on earth between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. Twenty minutes, and one of the great scheduled flights anywhere.

Jomsom (2,720 m) is the district headquarters of Mustang. After the formalities the group walks north up the broad grey riverbed, into the wind that funnels up this valley every day of the year.

Kagbeni (2,810 m) is a compact medieval village of mud-brick alleys, a red gompa and irrigation channels running under the streets. It sits at the checkpoint where the Upper Mustang restricted area begins, and the difference between the green oasis of the village and the desert around it is total.

Around 3 hours of walking. Overnight at Kagbeni.

The first day inside the restricted area, and the landscape changes character immediately.

The trail follows the Kali Gandaki north through Tangbe and Chhusang, villages of whitewashed houses, buckwheat fields and apple orchards set against cliffs of ochre, grey and red. The rock formations above Chhusang are eroded into columns and fins by the wind.

Beyond Chhusang the river disappears into a canyon and the trail climbs away from it, crossing to the east bank through a natural rock tunnel.

Chele (3,050 m) is a small village on the far side, where the route leaves the river for good and starts the series of passes that make up the Mustang trail. Around 5–6 hours. Overnight at Chele.

A long day over three passes, the classic Mustang rhythm of climb, cross, descend and climb again.

The trail climbs steeply out of Chele to the Taklam La and then the Dajori La, with the canyon country opening out into a plateau of eroded ridges. Every pass is marked with cairns and prayer flags and every one gives a bigger view than the last.

The village of Samar and the cave gompa at Rangbyung — a shrine built around natural rock formations in a gorge — come before the final climb to the Nyi La.

Ghami (3,520 m) is a substantial village of flat-roofed houses among poplar trees and barley fields. Just beyond it stands the longest mani wall in Nepal, several hundred metres of carved stone.

Around 7 hours. Overnight at Ghami.

A shorter day past the most photographed cliffs in Mustang.

The trail crosses the mani wall and climbs past Dhakmar, where the cliffs are a deep blood red — local tradition holds that they were stained by the blood of a demoness subdued by Guru Rinpoche when the monastery at Lo Gekar was founded.

The route crosses the Mui La and descends into the Charang valley, with the fields green against the red and grey rock.

Charang (3,560 m) sits beneath a five-storey dzong and a red monastery on the lip of a canyon. The gompa holds an important collection of thangkas and statues, and the caretaker will usually open it in the afternoon.

Around 5 hours. Overnight at Charang.

The day you reach the walled city, and the high point of the Mustang half of the trek.

The trail climbs steadily out of Charang and over the Lo La at around 3,950 m, and from the top Lo Manthang appears below on the plain — a compact walled rectangle of white buildings with the Tibetan border ridge behind it.

It is a striking first sight. The city was the capital of the Kingdom of Lo, which kept its own monarchy until 2008, and the walls, the four-storey palace and the monasteries inside them date from the fifteenth century.

Lo Manthang (3,840 m) has around 150 houses packed inside the wall, with the fields and newer buildings outside it. Arrive in the early afternoon with time to walk the perimeter before dark.

Around 4–5 hours. Overnight at Lo Manthang.

A full day in the city, and the acclimatisation day the second half of the trek depends on.

The morning is the monasteries. Jampa Lhakhang, the oldest, holds a fifteenth-century clay Maitreya and mandala murals that have been painstakingly restored; Thubchen is a vast assembly hall of massive wooden columns; Chodey is the working monastery of the city.

In the afternoon there is a choice: ride or walk north to the cave complexes at Chhoser, where a five-storey warren of rooms is carved into a cliff face and reached by ladders, or up to Namgyal Gompa and the viewpoint above the city.

Both take you above 4,000 m, which is the point on a day that is doing acclimatisation work as well as sightseeing. Your guide checks the group tonight before the plateau section. Overnight at Lo Manthang.

East off the main Mustang circuit and onto the route almost nobody walks.

The trail leaves Lo Manthang south-east across open plateau, crossing the Dhi La and dropping into the valley of the Kali Gandaki's upper tributaries. The country is emptier here — no trekking traffic at all, and villages hours apart.

The walking is on high desert: gravel plains, eroded ridges, and irrigation-green villages appearing suddenly in the canyon bottoms.

Yara (3,650 m) is a small village of a few dozen houses with barley fields and a view across to the cliffs holding the Luri cave gompa. This is the last village with a lodge before the plateau.

Around 6–7 hours. Overnight at Yara.

A visit to the finest cave monastery in Mustang, then out onto the plateau and into the tents.

The morning detour climbs to Luri Gompa, built into a cliff face and reached by a steep path and a short scramble. The upper chamber is a chorten cave with fifteenth-century murals painted directly onto the rock, among the oldest surviving Buddhist wall paintings in Nepal.

From Luri the route turns east and climbs onto open plateau. Villages stop, water becomes scarce, and the landscape flattens into gravel, wind and enormous sky.

Ghuma Thanti (4,150 m) is a pilgrim rest house on the summer route to Damodar Kunda, with room to camp beside it. From here the group is entirely self-contained.

Around 6 hours. Overnight camping at Ghuma Thanti.

A long day across the plateau to the sacred lakes, gaining 750 m on ground with no shelter at all.

The route crosses two passes above 5,000 m and traverses high gravel desert, wind-scoured and almost lifeless. Blue sheep are the only wildlife you are likely to see, and there is no water between camps except what the crew carries.

Damodar Kunda (4,890 m) is a group of small lakes in a basin at the foot of the Damodar Himal, sacred to Hindus and associated with Vishnu. The shaligram fossils found here are venerated across Nepal and India, and pilgrims walk up in the summer months.

The camp is beside the water with Saribung Peak and the glacier visible ahead. It is cold, windy and utterly silent.

Around 7–8 hours. Overnight camping at Damodar Kunda.

A day at the lakes for altitude and for technical preparation before the col.

The morning walk climbs a ridge above the basin towards 5,200 m, which both acclimatises the group and gives the first proper look at the Saribung glacier and the line of the pass.

The afternoon is training on the slope near camp: crampons fitted and walked in, ice axe technique, moving as a roped team, and ascending a fixed line. Even experienced members go through it, because the drills need to be the same for everyone on the day.

Your guide makes the decision here about who crosses. Beyond the next camp the group is committed, and this is the last place a member can turn back with staff down the Mustang side. The weather forecast is reviewed tonight.

Overnight camping at Damodar Kunda.

A short move onto the moraine below the glacier, and the highest camp of the trek.

The route climbs south from the lakes onto glacial debris, following the moraine towards the foot of the Saribung glacier. Four hundred metres of gain takes four hours at this height, and the group moves in short stages.

Saribung Base Camp (5,300 m) is pitched on rock and snow with the col visible above. There is no shelter, water is melted from snow, and the temperature drops the moment the sun goes off the camp in mid-afternoon.

The evening is early and methodical: harness, crampons, headlamp and water sorted before dark, a hot meal, and boots and batteries into the sleeping bag. Your guide sets the start time and the turnaround.

Around 4 hours. Overnight camping at Saribung Base Camp.

The crossing: the longest and hardest day of the trek by a wide margin.

We leave camp in the dark, roped and in crampons, and climb the Saribung glacier in a steady line, weaving around crevasses with the staff fixing rope on the steeper snow. Sunrise catches the Damodar Himal behind you while the group is still in shadow.

The Saribung La (6,042 m) is a snow col with an enormous view: the Tibetan plateau north, the Damodar and Peri Himal around, and Himlung Himal (7,126 m) and the Annapurnas south across the Nar Phu valleys.

The descent is long — more than 1,600 m — on snow, then moraine, then scree, dropping out of the glacier system into grazing country.

Nagoru (4,400 m) is a herders' ground on the Phu side with water and flat pitches. Ten to twelve hours. Overnight camping at Nagoru.

Down into the Phu valley and the first village since Yara — a week ago.

The trail descends grazing slopes and moraine into the upper Phu valley, following the river as the walls close in. Yaks appear, then stone walls, then irrigation channels.

Phu (4,080 m) is one of the most striking villages in Nepal: a tight cluster of stone houses stacked on a rock spur above the river, with the ruins of a fortress above and a chorten gateway at the entrance. It is Tibetan in language, dress and religion, and it was closed to outsiders until 2002.

Tashi Lhakhang Gompa sits on the ridge outside the village and is worth the climb for the view back up the valley to Himlung Himal.

Around 5–6 hours. This is the first lodge in a week. Overnight at Phu.

A long descent through the Nar Phu gorge, one of the most dramatic stretches of trail in the Annapurna region.

The route follows the Phu Khola down a canyon of red and grey rock, past chortens, prayer walls and the occasional cave. The trail is cut into the wall in places and crosses the river repeatedly on wooden and cable bridges.

This valley was a restricted area until 2002 and remains one, and the traffic is a handful of trekking groups a season. What you see instead is yak trains, herders and monks moving between the two villages.

Meta (3,560 m) is a settlement of stone houses on a shelf with a wide view south to Annapurna II and Lamjung Himal.

Around 6–7 hours. Overnight at Meta.

The last walking day, dropping out of the gorge onto the Annapurna Circuit.

The trail descends steeply through pine and juniper forest, following the river through the narrowest part of the canyon with hot springs beside the path at Dharmasala. The air thickens quickly and the vegetation returns valley by valley.

At the mouth of the gorge the Nar Phu Khola joins the Marsyangdi, and the group checks out of the restricted area at the police post.

Koto (2,600 m) is on the Annapurna Circuit, and after three weeks in two restricted areas the sudden appearance of bakeries, jeeps and other trekkers is genuinely disorienting.

This is where the porters and cook crew finish and where tips are given. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Koto.

A jeep day down the Marsyangdi on the roughest road of the trip.

The route descends through Chame, Dharapani and Jagat on a single-track road cut into the valley side, fording streams and crawling along ledges above the river. It is slow going — five to six hours for what looks like a short distance on a map — and the scenery is superb the whole way.

The valley changes completely as it drops: from pine and barley terraces at Chame to subtropical green and rice paddies by Besisahar, with waterfalls off both walls.

Besisahar (760 m) is the road town at the start of the Annapurna Circuit and the end of the rough section.

Overnight at Besisahar.

A straightforward highway day back to the capital.

The Marsyangdi valley opens out below Besisahar into the wide farmed country of Lamjung, and the change from the plateau you were walking a week ago could not be more complete — rice terraces, banana trees, and buffalo standing in the irrigation channels.

The road from Besisahar joins the Prithvi Highway at Dumre and follows the Trishuli east through the gorge country, with a lunch stop en route. Around six hours in total.

You arrive in Kathmandu (1,400 m) in the afternoon and transfer to your hotel. After three weeks the first hot shower takes a while.

The evening is free, and this is when most groups have their celebration dinner with the guides. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A day held in reserve, and a free day in Kathmandu if the trek ran to schedule.

On a route with a 6,000 m col and a weather-dependent flight at the start, spare days are part of the plan rather than padding. If everything went smoothly, today is yours.

Boudhanath in the late afternoon is the natural choice after a trek through Tibetan Buddhist country — the community that walks the circuit there comes from exactly the valleys you have been in. Patan Durbar Square and its museum, or the old town at Bhaktapur, fill a day equally well.

Thamel handles the shopping. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Your last day in Nepal. If your flight leaves later there is time for Swayambhunath or a last walk through the old city with your guide.

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

You have walked from the Kali Gandaki to the Marsyangdi across the Tibetan plateau, crossed a glaciated 6,042 m col, and spent three weeks in two of the most tightly controlled trekking regions in Nepal. The Teri La next door and the Sherpani Col in the Makalu region are the two routes that go further. Safe travels.