Cho La Pass Trek

Normally, your arrival in Kathmandu is day one of this trip. We will come to pick you up at the airport as per your flight time and transfer you to the hotel. There are no activities today apart from a trip briefing meeting. The information about the meeting time will be available upon your arrival at the hotel.

You have time to relax and go for any last-minute preparation of the trip. Welcome to Kathmandu!

We have a full day in Kathmandu to explore the heritage sites in the valley. If we have not met for the meeting yesterday, we will meet today after breakfast. If we have met yesterday, we will continue on a full-day sightseeing tour.

Your entire afternoon will be busy going around different ancient and medieval heritage monuments in the Kathmandu valley. We will take you to Swoyambhunath, Kathmandu Durbar Square, Boudhanath, and Pashupatinath to explore the ancient and medieval magnificence of the valley.

The tour will show you a lot about the culture, spiritual practice, history, and lifestyle of people in the valley. You will have an awesome cultural tour day today. Our city tour guide will make it easier for you to understand what you are looking at to make your experience even better.

We will start our trekking adventure towards the Everest Base Camp today. Early in the morning, we will take a flight to Lukla. The adventurous flight of about forty minutes takes us to Lukla to enter the Everest trekking region. Once we land at Lukla airstrip, we will get ready to start the walk of the day.

We start the trek to Phakding as our overnight destination today. It is about 4 hours of the easy trek on the gentle and gradual downhill trail to Phakding on the bank of a river called Dudh Koshi. It will be an amazingly peaceful day on the trail to Everest base camp.

We continue the walk on the Everest base camp trail after breakfast. Our destination for the day is the beautiful mountain town of Namche Bazar. The trail takes us through a winding trail up the mountains. As we continue the walk towards the destination, we cross several suspension bridges on the trail. After checking into the Sagarmatha national park at Monjo, we continue the walk to Namche for the day.

Once we reach Namche Bazar, a prosperous mountain trading town in the Everest region, we will check into a guest house and relax. A nicely settled town in the terraced slope, Namche Bazar brings you spectacular views of mountains like Thamserku (6,6232m) and Kongde Ri (6,187m) to its west.

We are already above 3000 meters above sea level so we need to take an extra day at Namche to acclimatize. On this extra day at Namche Bazar, we will go for a hike and explore the surroundings.

We will have the latter half of the day to rest and relax once we are back from the hike.

The trek today continues towards Gokyo Lakes and the destination for the day is the beautiful settlement of Dole. The trek ascends up a ridge and then descends down from the Khumbila peak. We descend down towards Sanasa and ascend up to Mongla. Along the way, the panoramic views of the Himalayas can be viewed. The trail descends further through Phortse Tenga and climbs steeply to Dole through the Rhododendron forest. We spend overnight at the local lodge.

Our trek continues through the peaceful trail with fewer trekkers. The trek takes us to Machhermo to stay overnight today. We climb up steadily along the side of the valley. The trail passes through settlements with views of Mt. Cho Oyu, and views of Kantega and Thamserku as we descend down the valley. By the time of lunch, we arrive at Machhermo. We stay overnight at the local lodge.

We follow the trail to Pangka and descend following one of the rivers flowing down from the west side of Ngozumpa Glacier. The path climbs past the first of the holy lakes and leads to the second lake. Crossing the second lake heads to Lobuche. Gokyo is located at the eastern shore of the third lake, Dudh Pokhari. We stay overnight in a lodge.

We have an early morning hike to Gokyo Ri that brings a breathtaking view of the mountains, glaciers, and lakes. Later on, we trek to Thangnag today. Comparatively a short walk today, we trek towards Thagnag via the third lake. The walk takes us past glacial moraine and shortly to Thagnag thereafter. After the beautiful short walk of the day, we reach Thagnag and explore the place for the rest of the day or simply take a leisurely time to rest.

It’s a long day today which takes us to Dzonghla for an overnight stay. The walk goes past a high Himalayan pass called Cho La at an elevation of 5420 meters above sea level. Today is not only a long day of trek but also a difficult walking day. The day starts early to trek up towards Cho La pass passing through huge boulders. We walk on a narrow and icy path through the pass thus have to be extra careful not to slip. After crossing the pass, we descend down towards Dzonghla where we spend overnight today.

Today we are going to meet the regular Everest base camp trekking trail when we reach Lobuche for our overnight stay. We are heading closer to the base camp of Everest as we walk further ahead towards Lobuche along the Khumbu valley. Once we reach Lobuche, we will meet trekkers making their way to the Everest base camp along the regular trekking trail to the base of the world’s highest mountain.

We are eventually going to make it to the Everest Base Camp today after these many days of trekking in and amidst the wonderful Himalayan peaks. Our determined and sincere effort to be at the base of the highest mountain in the world is going to materialize this afternoon. We are going to stand at the place where many climbers have spent days and nights training, preparing, and attempting the summit of the formidable Mt. Everest.

We walk to Gorakshep, a small settlement on the glacial lakebed in the Everest region, where we are going to spend overnight today as the highest overnight stopover for the trip. After relishing our lunch at our tea house, we set off for the Everest Base Camp. A slow-paced walk on the moraine and boulder-strewn gradual path up to base camp is going to test our excitement and stamina. Anyway, we are going to get to the base camp regardless of the difficulty of walking at the elevation. We click countless pictures and enjoy the moment of being at the classic Everest base camp before making a return trip to Gorakshep for an overnight stay.

We get up early, really early, in the morning to hike up to Kalapatthar, the highest elevation on the trip, for a breathtaking view of Mt. Everest, Lhotse, and other Himalayan panoramas up close with a spectacular sunrise over those mighty peaks. This never-seen-before view and sunrise on earth are going to blow our mind away alluring us to stay there forever. Alas, we wish we could!

We have to make a return trip back to Gorakshep for breakfast. We start the trek back to Pheriche after breakfast. The trek down today is taking us to a new place that we have not covered on the trek. Pheriche is a beautiful settlement in the Khumbu region which is normally the stopover place for many Everest trekkers on their way back down after the base camp and Kalapatthar joy on the trip.

On the way back down towards Lukla, we traverse the trail to Khumjung today which lies on a different route that normally doesn’t come on the way up to the base camp. Khumjung is a beautiful settlement situated near Mt. Khumbila with the view of other mountain peaks around. The Buddhist monastery here in the village has a Yeti Scalp.

We will trek further to Namche Bazar to stay overnight today.

It’s the last day of trekking when we trek to Lukla today. The lower we walk, the farther we are leaving the iconic Everest base camp behind physically but we are carrying a beautiful memory of being there. We cross suspension bridges and walk past Phakding and advance towards Lukla. Once we reach Lukla to bring our trekking part to an end, we duly thank our supporting team members. If it were not for their amazing effort, our journey would be very difficult. We celebrate the joy of making it to the base of the highest peak in the world.

We take a morning flight from the Lukla airstrip leaving the mighty mountains behind us. Another exciting flight with adventure takes us back to the city civilization. Once in Kathmandu, we spend leisurely time back in the chaos of the city after so many days of serene mountain air and incredible adventure.

We have an extra day to make up for any possible delays on the trip.

The trip has come to an end today. We have to bid farewell for this time hoping to meet again for another adventure soon. We will drive you to the airport for your departure flight as scheduled.