Category: Gokyo trek

The hike from Monjo to Namche is short, just 5 km, but quite steep in places as we were gaining 560 m, very crowded in the morning. After checking-in Khumbu Lodge, we walked to Sagarmatha National Park Headquarters located on a hill just outside Namche – great views of the surrounding mountains. Visited Namche Bakery for sweets and coffee, and to recharge batteries (for free). Namche is nice despite being packed with tourists, but we decided to go to Khumjung the next day and stay there for the night rather than visiting Khumjung and Khunde as a day trip. Only ~ 3 km hike on one of many local trails. Very good decision. Better for acclimatization (3763 masl) and good starting point for the hike to Dole next day. Nice Sherpa village, good lodge, sunny/warm room, fewer tourists. We visited Nauche (Namche) Gompa on the way and walked around Khumjung and to its gompa after lunch. Hidden Village Lodge (recommended) was an excellent choice. We were the only guests the first night and had good dinnertime talk with our host. There were two groups in our lodge for the second night, but it remained friendly and clean. The lodge and many other buildings are new as the village was badly damaged in the 2015 earthquake. In the end we decided to stay yet another day in Khumjung, Joanna took her rest day and I wondered around a bit visiting Khunde. Both villages are very pretty, real villages with school, hospital, monasteries, fields, yaks, fewer tourists. I took advantage of sunny weather to do some laundry, in a big bucket, taking water from the central village faucet. Made some people laugh. Sun or not it took 3 days to dry our stuff. Ended the day walking up a small hill to take sunset photos of the mountains – no luck as clouds moved in. At these altitudes it can get cold, but when the Sun is out it feels almost like summer and the weather was quite warm that year, we were told. The lowest temp we were exposed to so far was 4℃ in our room at night in Monjo. We are in real mountains now with nearby peaks 6000 – 7000 m high and some 8000 m peaks not far away.

For the next 3 days we hiked along Dudh Koshi River, kind of, because steep slopes of the valley often push the trail far and high: from Jubing to Khare, Surke and Monjo passing several other villages on the way, with many lodges and restaurants to stop for the night or just short breaks. Some parts of the trail were very nice, some not so much – the same trail is used to deliver goods to Namche by mules. We visited monastery in Kharikhola and stopped for a break in Bupsa. We spent the night in the most popular lodge in Khare. On the not so interesting section to Surke, we still got good views of the Dudh Koshi Valley, good lunch in Paiya and a first glimpse of high mountains (towards Kusum Kanguru massif) in late afternoon light. In Surke we stayed in Thamserku Lodge (OK, but not very good, shower in sister lodge Namaste). Two other lodges we checked were already full when we arrived. The next day, we walked through beautiful Chaurikharka. In Cheplung we merged with heavy tourist traffic to/from Lukla – happy madness. Some groups were 30-50 strong. Difficult to keep your own hiking pace. By the time we finished lunch in Thadokosi, with nice views from the restaurant terrace, all the groups were pretty much gone. The traffic got lighter in the afternoon as most people trekking from Lukla stayed in Phakding. We continued to Monjo. We had nice room with bathroom at quite large Mount Kailash Lodge (good food, not enough sun to power solar panels for water heaters).

The first 5 days from Phaplu ( 2479 masl) to Monjo ( 2870 masl) we walked 56 kms and felt like we were conquering some “serious” mountains, because the trail was going up and down all the time (1500 – 3100 masl), but in the end we gained only 400 m in altitude. We were a day behind our plan already (= lost reserve day allocated for a day-hike in Thame), but our plan was to warm-up slowly before we go higher and hiking was getting easier every day.

Phaplu at the end of paved road and with small airstrip is one of the entry points to the Khumbu (Everest) region. Most people fly to Lukla further up Dudh Koshi (river) to shorten their walk to EBC or Gokyo, but supplies and luggage is often carried by porters and mules from Phaplu or Nunthala.

We are on the move. First, it was an easy and relaxing walk on mountain road along broad valley to small village Ringmu. We were passed by only 3 or 4 jeeps carrying porters with their load heading to Nunthala. The jeep road under construction ended there when we visited. We met only 4 hikers with backpacks. In Ringmu we joined popular trail from Jiri (marked with orange circles, other trails we walked were not marked, but navigation was easy).

The following day we rolled down to Dudh Koshi = leg-tiring 1400 m drop in altitude, and after crossing the river and walking up the hill for a while, we parked for the night at Gorkhali Lodge in Jubing. On the way, we stopped in Nunthala for lunch and to break long descent. Jubing is a nice village with green fields and flowers, good dal bhat with unusual local veggies at the lodge. We walked 23 km the first two days.

We drove 10 hours from Kathmandu to Phaplu in jeep with 9 people packed like sardines (it was’n too bad). Started the day at 4:30 picked-up by the driver near our apartment, left Chabahil Chowk around 5:30 AM and arrived in Phaplu around 3:30 PM.  Part of the road is quite scenic, along a river and then up out of the valley traversing steep slopes. No time to stop for pictures, only a short break for lunch at road-side restaurant. We parked for the night at a small hotel across the street from Phaplu airport (not good for the price, toilet outside). The following day we started walking towards higher ground – day one of trekking.