• Who this trek is for: Upper Dolpo to Jomsom trek would be a suitable objective for most people with a reasonable fitness level and previous trekking experience in Himalaya. The attraction is visiting a remote and isolated region with captivating landscapes a fascinating culture.
  
  
• Permits: A US$500 per 10 days restricted area permit is required for this area.   Plus TIMS?
  
  
• Getting to and from:  1 day flying to Nepalgunj or Surkhet, next morning fly to Juphal. 1 day to return from Jomson to Pokhara to Kathmandu.

Introduction

Instead of following the more popular Dolpo Circuit trek, the Upper Dolpo to Jomsom trek heads further north to an area very close to the Tibet border and then walks out along the challenging trail to Jomsom giving you a good number of days on one of the most special sections of The Great Himalaya Trail.

Special because Upper Dolpo is a culturally Tibetan region and one of the few places where Bön villages and gompas (monasteries) can still be found. Bön is the Tibetan religion that pre-dates Tibetan Buddhism. Up until 1996 foreigners were not allowed access to this region so the culture has largely been unchanged and unaffected by tourism. Shey Gompa, visited at the mid-point of the trek, is revered as one of most important spiritual places in Upper Dolpo. Here, twice a year, many pilgrims arrive to complete a kora (or circuit) of Crystal Mountain, this is known as a younger brother of Mount Kailash in Tibet.

You’ll see a wide variety of landscapes from pine forests in the Suli Gad valley to the stunningly intense blue colour of Phoksumdo Lake. As the trail travels further north into the Trans-Himalaya region the climate becomes dryer as a result of the rain shadow effect of the 8,000m peaks of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. Upper Dolpo is mainly comprised of a high, arid plateau cut by deep gorges in a variety of earthy colours covered with sporadic vegetation. You’ll have the chance to see many herds of blue sheep, marmots, eagles, lammergeyer, langur monkeys and large variety of birds.

Roland Hunter brought a group from the UK and explained back in Kathmandu their reaction to the trek:

“Between the members of this group, they had done a lot of trekking in the Himalaya. When we discussed the trek back in Kathmandu, I heard comments like, ’Upper Dolpo to Jomsom trek is arguably one of the best treks in Nepal’ and ‘better than Lunana Snowman trek in Bhutan!’”

But, says Roland, “If this is one of the best treks in the Himalaya then it is worth asking the question, why did we see so few people on the trail? We only met a handful of trekkers during our 3 weeks trip.” He speculates that “others have been put off by lack of maps and guidebooks as well as logistical challenges and of course the extra cost to obtain the Restricted Area Permit.” It could also simply be that it gets only a little mention on websites swamped with easier itineraries for Everest, Annapurna and Langtang.

Roland is a good person to ask questions about this kind of thing as he is so diligent about collecting and recording trekking information and developing accurate itineraries. So here goes:

How are the maps and guides for this trek?

“When I did the trek in April / May 2010, I got all of the maps for Upper Dolpo while in Kathmandu, however found they were pretty much all out of date and inaccurate. I had a look recently at Robin Boustead’s guidebook, and it has a reasonably detailed description of the route to Chharka Bhot through Dho Tarap, Phoksumdo and Shey. Our itinerary (far more interesting and remote) is the northern route through Tinje and Shimengaon, this only has a brief paragraph in Robins guidebook. During our recce trek we figured out the itinerary from daily discussions with our trek crew, therefore I think it is essential that the Sirdar and/or cook has visited this region on a previous occasion.”

You mentioned logistical challenges, what were those challenges?

“Organising the logistics for this trek are challenging, the Upper Dolpo region is very remote so all groups have to be self reliant in terms of provisions, medical supplies and communications, we used a Thuraya satellite phone that worked well throughout. All food should be brought in with the trekking group as it is not possible to purchase locally in the villages. Our porters and kitchen staff walked in with our supplies for 9 days from the road head near Surkhet to Juphal.”

What was the highlight and why?

“This was one of the best treks I have done in Himalaya so there were many highlights…however probably for me the main one was simply trekking in a remote area with very few other trekkers around and seeing the traditional Dolpo-pa villages and meeting the local people. I thought that this trek was very satisfying as it had a sense of journey by traversing from Upper Dolpo into Kali Gandaki valley over a number of high passes.

“The other highlights include seeing lots of wildlife such as blue sheep and birds in Upper Dolpo also we met another trekking group who were lucky enough to spot a snow leopard earlier that day. The views on this trek were stunning especially seeing Mount Dhaulagiri from Chharka La pass and of course the stunning blue colour of Phoksumdo lake.”

What kind of person would like this trek?

Upper Dolpo to Jomsom trek would be a suitable objective for most people with a reasonable fitness level and previous trekking experience in Himalaya. Upper Dolpo is good walking country however there are several steeper trails with exposure such as around Phoksumdo Lake (the one where yak fell into the lake in Eric Valli’s film Himalaya/Caravan).

There are no technical passes on this trek although we found the toughest pass to cross was Kang La as in early May there was still some patches of winter snow so trail quite slippery in places. Kang La is the first major pass one crosses on this trek from Snowfield Camp above Phoksumdo Lake to reach Shey.

If you could change the itinerary, what would you add or remove?

“I would not change our itinerary however certainly I was glad we followed the northern route in Upper Dolpo rather than the relatively more popular trail to the south through Dho Tarap and Saldang villages. I think the highest risk with organising this trek is the possibility of delays flying into Juphal from Surkhet (or Nepalganj). It is well worth including some buffer days in the itinerary as Juphal is a mountain airstrip therefore prone to similar delays with bad weather as commonly experienced at Lukla in the Everest region.”

Best time to go?

“In terms of time of year my view is that the best time to do this trek is during the month of May, this gives one the best chance of crossing the high passes out to Jomsom.

“September is probably more popular with trekking groups however often the passes are icey making travel impossible for the pack animals. We started the trek from Juphal on April 28th and finished in Jomsom on May 19th. We experienced dry conditions over all passes apart from a few residual winter snow patches on Kang La to Shey however our mules still managed to cross this pass with their loads.”

Anything else to add?

I was thinking about my answer to one of your Makalu to Everest questions, “Are there any chances to use local services like tea-houses or local guides?” It would also be worth mentioning that local villages also benefit from donations for example at Tashigaon everyone in our group gave a personal donation to the school (I think they collected in total about 14,000 rupees from us).