2025 Dolpo Crystal Mountain
A great trek across Dolpo as it changes
Dolpo is a dramatic trans-Himalayan landscape of nature's colours and bedrock textures, water-sculpted gorges of sheer rockfaces and translucent turquoise rapids, steep hillsides of fragrant pine and alpine grasses crowned by soaring mountains, and all on a Himalayan scale. Meditatively blended into this are red ochre gompas with chanting incarnate lamas, jingling yak caravans driven by jaunty cowboys, snotty ragamuffins and their more circumspect parents living sustainably in once fortified stone villages. Our trek route is an appreciative, adventurous journey where we immerse ourselves in all that is Dolpo.
Our carefully thought-out, adaptable route takes in the best of Dolpo's picturesque villages and gompas, avoiding new dirt roads as much as possible, and also getting remote, well off the beaten track. Although Dolpo is said to be a rain shadow area, during the monsoon there are life-giving rain for the crops, and there could be (rarely) be several days of real monsoon rain with thundering, overflowing rivers but otherwise it will mostly be and glorious days of wildflowers and bright cloudscapes.
We begin with a flight to Nepalgunj then a road trip to Dunai. Attempting to fly to Juphal is normal however during the monsoon many flights are cancelled - there are mountains in those clouds! Instead we share a chartered bus with our crew for a true, classic road trip experience.
We begin trekking from the still surprisingly rustic district headquarter of Dunai after completing the purchase of supplies. We soon leave farm tractors and motorbikes behind for a couple of days along the Phoksundo Khola through of beautiful forest and charming hamlets. We head up the Suligad River gorge to Phoksundo Lake and cross our first 5000 meter pass leading to sacred Shey Gompa and Shelri, or Crystal Mountain. Will you make a kora around the mountain clockwise as a Buddhist or anti-clockwise as a Bon?
The next highlight is the journey to Bhijer and Shyamling Gompa, often with panoramas of the Himalayan giants to our south and we saw a snow leopard once on this trail. We then trek to Saldang, perhaps avoiding or partly avoiding the motorbike road under construction - there are two routes and some variations...
At Saldang do visit the gompas and admire their murals. Then, we follow the valley southeast through pretty villages with crops in the fields then leave these behind and cross a less used pass with no road over to Tokyu-Mondo. From there, the back way to Chharka is also mostly road-free, and a scenic adventure.
There's definitely a "before it's gone" feel to trekking in the region now, and this will hit hard at once medieval Chharka where a rough jeep road from Jomsom reaches. Pre-covid, we watched the locals knocking the front rooms from their houses to widen the path through, and as a community rebuilding these houses together.
But will there be jeeps? If there has been some rain, most likely the track is not driveable, so we trek along that classic route at least to Sangtha where we might find jeeps - and might not, mental flexibility required! Then it is on to Jomsom or Kagbeni, depending on your final destination.
The brunt of the monsoon falls against the high ridge south of Dolpo however a strong wave of the monsoon could push over meaning there could be a burst of heavy rains over a few days to possibly a week, and this happens perhaps twice during the rainy season. While we can walk through showers, it is better to hunker down if the rain is steady. Our itinerary can cope with there are some shorter days and plenty of rest days, as well as possible shortcuts for some sections. Hopefully, as in 2024, these won't be needed.
However, for much of the time, the weather should feature fine mornings with developing cloudscapes, sometimes building to a light shower or night showers. The crops are green starting to turn golden, the villages at their vibrant best and it is the prettiest time to trek through both the villages and the alpine areas filled with wildflowers.
All in all, our trek is a unique, fabulous Dolpo journey of variety.
*This itinerary is a work in progress!*
