Upper Dolpo Trek to Shey Gompa

Airport transfer, hotel, and an evening briefing with a full kit check. Upper Dolpo is a camping expedition and the gear list is longer than a teahouse trek.

Altitude: 1,400 m.

Your Upper Dolpo restricted area permit is processed today and needs your original passport. The morning is free for Boudhanath or Patan; the afternoon is for hiring or buying anything still missing.

Altitude: 1,400 m.

Flight to the Terai and an overnight near the airport. Final repack for the Juphal weight limit.

Altitude: 150 m. Flight: about 1 hour.

Into the Bheri gorge by small aircraft, then down to the river and up to Dunai.

Altitude: 2,140 m. Distance: 4 km. Walking: 2 to 3 hours.

Up the Suli Gad through the park checkpost at Sulighat, climbing gently through pine and walnut into the gorge.

Altitude: 2,670 m. Distance: 14 km. Walking: 5 to 6 hours.

A steeper day beside the river, past the waterfall, with birch replacing pine as you climb.

Altitude: 3,110 m. Distance: 13 km. Walking: 5 to 6 hours.

The steep spur to the 3,780 m ridge, the first sight of the lake, and the drop into Ringmo.

Altitude: 3,640 m. Distance: 5 km. Walking: 3 to 4 hours.

A rest day that is not a rest day. We walk a few hundred metres above the lake and come back down, and you spend the afternoon at Thasung Tsholing or on the shore.

Everything after tomorrow is above 3,700 m and mostly above 4,300 m. This day matters.

Altitude: 3,640 m. Walking: 3 to 4 hours.

The famous section: the trail cut into the cliff above the western shore, narrow, exposed and built on stacked stone in places. Then the ground flattens into the meadow at the head of the lake.

Camp is on the flats by the Phoksundo Khola. This is the last easy night before the pass.

Altitude: 3,700 m. Distance: 10 km. Walking: 5 to 6 hours.

A long climb up a side valley with nearly 950 m of gain, following a stream to a high camp below the pass. Blue sheep are common on these slopes and snow leopards are not, whatever the brochures say.

Altitude: 4,635 m. Distance: 9 km. Walking: 6 to 7 hours.

The big one. Kang La at 5,360 m is a steep pull on scree and the descent on the far side is just as steep, down into the Shey valley with the Crystal Mountain ahead.

Shey Gompa sits where two rivers meet, a red-walled monastery founded in the eleventh century. Arriving here on foot after ten days is the point of the whole trip.

Altitude: 4,340 m. Pass: Kang La, 5,360 m. Distance: 10 km. Walking: 6 to 7 hours.

A full day at Shey. The kora around Crystal Mountain is the pilgrimage circuit that gives the place its meaning, and it takes most of a day at this altitude.

The mountain is quartz-veined and the rock really does glitter. Pilgrims walk the circuit clockwise in summer; we do the same.

Altitude: 4,340 m. Walking: 4 to 6 hours.

North and east over rolling high ground, then a long descent to Bhijer, a village of flat roofs stacked against the hillside with a gompa above it.

Altitude: 3,855 m. Distance: 18 km. Walking: 6 to 7 hours.

A hard climb to a high, cold camp below the second big pass. There is no water for the last stretch, so the crew carries it up.

Altitude: 4,880 m. Distance: 7 km. Walking: 5 to 6 hours.

Nengla La at 5,390 m is the highest point of the trek. The view north runs into Tibet across a landscape with almost nothing green in it.

The descent to Saldang is long. Saldang is the largest village in Upper Dolpo, strung along a terrace above the river with barley fields and a lot of chortens.

Altitude: 4,050 m. Pass: Nengla La, 5,390 m. Distance: 12 km. Walking: 7 to 8 hours.

A gentler day south along the Nam Khong river past chortens and mani walls, through Namdo, a scattered settlement with a monastery and a long history of salt trading with Tibet.

Altitude: 4,100 m. Distance: 14 km. Walking: 5 to 6 hours.

Continuing south down the valley, losing height slowly, with the trail high above the river for much of the day.

Altitude: 3,900 m. Distance: 15 km. Walking: 6 hours.

Over a low pass and into the Tarap valley, wide and flat after two weeks of gorges and high ground.

Altitude: 4,090 m. Distance: 13 km. Walking: 6 to 7 hours.

A day in the valley. Ribo Bhumpa and Shipchhok gompas are both walkable, one Buddhist and one Bon, and the contrast is the clearest lesson in Dolpo religion you will get.

This is also the contingency day. If weather cost us a day earlier, it is spent here.

Altitude: 4,090 m.

The long drop into the Tarap gorge, nearly 1,500 m of descent on an exposed trail built out from the cliff in places. A big day for the knees.

Altitude: 2,600 m. Distance: 22 km. Walking: 7 to 8 hours.

Out of the gorge and down the Thuli Bheri to Dunai. The first proper village in a fortnight, with shops and a lodge bed.

Altitude: 2,090 m. Distance: 23 km. Walking: 6 to 7 hours.

A short last walk and the climb to the airstrip.

Altitude: 2,475 m. Distance: 10 km. Walking: 3 hours.

Morning flight out of the hills and a connection to Kathmandu.

Altitude: 1,400 m.

Transfer to the airport for your onward flight.

Altitude: 1,400 m.