Upper Dolpo Trek, Nepal

Monsoon Season Trekking in Nepal

June '23 was pretty open for me -- time (yay!) for a visit to Nepal.  Problem: the monsoon arrives in Nepal around the middle of June.  Hiking through the rain isn't what I had in mind, and it's also rather self-defeating if you're interested in seeing anything -- the views are mainly, in the monsoon, banks of grey cloud.  But there are parts of Nepal, contra the long-ago Heineken ad, that the monsoon doesn't reach, namely regions the North of the main range, in the rain shadow of the big peaks.  These transhimalayan regions are politically in Nepal, but are functionally -- geographically, linguistically, and culturally -- Tibetan.  Hence my trip to Dolpa/Dolpo and Mustang.  Remote country, and regions I've long wanted to visit [the first time I became aware of these areas was 41 years ago, during my first visit to Nepal.  I hiked back then to the boundaries of both Dolpa and Mustang, and stared, tantalized, into both.  They were however in those days off limits -- foreigners prohibited (partly because of the proximity of the Chinese/TIbetan border).  That's however changed: these days the Nepalese Govt both restricts access and makes money by charging top dollar for permits].  The virtue of the expense (permits) + low season + remoteness is that these areas are relatively unfrequented by foreigners like me.  In three weeks in the region this summer, I didn't encounter a single non-Nepali. 

Permitting regulations require that I travel with a registered guide, and there are other complications too: the absence of the 'teahouse' trekking culture (most of the villages we visited lacked lodges) that is a feature of the standard treks; that we would spend time in high areas away from any settlements; etc.  The trip would involve camping and self-sufficiency on the food front. Upshot: a logistically complicated undertaking involving me, 5 staff, 5 mules, and a mule driver (a massive departure from what I had in mind when I first started thinking about going back to Nepal.  All my previous trekking there had been teahouse/lodge-style -- solo, and carrying little beyond a sleeping bag).  An additional complication: because the route was non-circular, the mules turned back about half way aound, meaning that the human team had to take on the carrying burden).  Non-trivial, and not cheap (esp. with the permits).  A wonderful long walk -- we covered a lot of ground and went over at least four 5000m passes -- and, after the hike, I stayed in the region for some Jeep tourism into parts of Upper Mustang, north of Jomsom/Kagbeni and just south of the Chinese border.  

A spectacular trip.  All the logistics (including permits, etc) were handled with marvellous efficiency by Raj Dhamala and his team at Himalayan Trekkers.  Trek leader Geli Sherpa and his crew were fantastic throughout.

Yes, this is one of those not-TR TR's!  (Sorry).  I've put together a video from the trip.  This is partly to do justice to the panoramic shots, which I feel are often the best way to capture the grandeur of mountain landscapes, and partly to showcase movie footage from the spectacular festival we stumbled into at the end of the trip in Lomanthang, Upper Mustang.