Mustang Region Travel Guide

Good trek, well organised, guide was strong on both passes. My issue is with how it is graded. Two passes above 5300m, a glacier crossing with ice, and day 11 is nine hours starting with a climb to 5357m before you even reach the pass. That is not beginner. It says strenuous in one place and beginner in another on the same page and somebody should fix that. If youre fit and have been to altitude before, brilliant trek and one of the best in the Khumbu. If youre new, do the standard EBC route first.

Worth saying plainly since i nearly booked it by mistake. Day 8 goes Dingboche to Dzongla and you turn west, so you do not visit Everest Base Camp or Kala Patthar at all. This is a Gokyo and two passes trek. Chandra was completely clear about that when i asked before booking and offered me the Three Passes one instead if i wanted base camp too. I chose this and have no regrets, you see Everest from Gokyo Ri and from Renjo La and honestly the views are better than from base camp. But know what youre buying.

After both passes you come down the old salt trade route along the Bhote Koshi to Thame, and there is a 14th century monastery on the cliff above the village. Hardly any trekkers come through here, its off the main trail entirely. Our guide walked us up and we sat in the gompa looking at the wall paintings for an hour. Tenzing Norgay grew up in this valley. Quietest and most interesting village of the whole fifteen days and its right at the end when you least expect it.

Day 11 is a monster, Gokyo Ri at dawn and then straight over Renjo La in the same day, 8 or 9 hours. But from the top of Renjo La you get Everest, Lhotse, Makalu and Cho Oyu at once with the Gokyo lakes turquoise below you and the Ngozumpa glacier running away behind. Cho La two days earlier was harder and more dramatic. Renjo La is the one i have on my wall. Descent down the stone steps into the Bhote Koshi valley afterwards goes on forever. Lumde is very quiet and there is almost nothing there.

My wife had wanted to do this for years and had always been put off by the descriptions of the lodges and bathrooms. This version solved that, Chnadra advised on our package choice thoroughlyPrivate rooms, warm buildings, hot water, chauffeured transfers at both ends, and a guide and porter looking after two of us rather than a group of twelve. It costs a lot more than the standard trek and i understand why some people would rather put that money into a second holiday. For us it was the difference between doing it and not doing it. Ask about the helicopter return option too, we did not take it but it exists.