Everest View Trek – 9 Days

As you come out of Tribhuvan International Airport, our staff member greets you and takes you through the traffic to your hotel. Get some sleep this afternoon if your flight was long, because tomorrow starts early.

Later your guide calls in to explain the flight and the week ahead. They’ll look over your boots and warm clothes and ask for your passport details, which are needed for the permits. You don’t need the heavy gear base camp trekkers carry, but nights at Tengboche are still cold.

If something’s missing, Thamel is the place to buy or rent it tonight.

Depending on the month, your plane leaves from Kathmandu or, for much of spring and autumn, from Manthali in Ramechhap, which means a night-time drive first. Try for a seat on the left, the side the mountains are on.

Lukla’s name means “place with many goats and sheep”, though you’ll see more porters than goats today. While your bags are sorted over a cup of tea, you get your first taste of thinner air. Then the trail heads down, not up, through Chheplung and Ghat, past prayer wheels and boulders carved with Buddhist prayers, with the pale water of the Dudh Koshi below you.

It’s a gentle first walk, and that’s deliberate: you sleep lower than you landed. Phakding is a line of lodges beside the river, and the evening is usually mild enough to sit outside in a jacket.

You follow the river upstream all morning, in and out of pine forest, on steel suspension bridges that bounce a little with every step. When yaks or other pack animals come by, step to the uphill side and never stand on the edge.

Just past Monjo your guide shows your permits at the gate of Sagarmatha National Park, and soon after Jorsale the trail leaves the valley floor. The high Hillary Suspension Bridge takes you across, and then Namche Hill begins: about 600 m of zigzags through the pines, with no real break. On a clear day, roughly halfway up, you may catch your first far-off look at Everest.

This is the hardest climb of the trek, so set a pace you could keep up all day and drink often. Namche finally appears on its hillside, shops and lodges stacked in rows. It’s only about 13 km from Lukla, but by now it feels a lot further.

Today is the reason many people pick this trek. From the top of town a steep path climbs to the Syangboche airstrip, and your lungs will tell you you’re higher than yesterday. At Syangboche is Sagarmatha Next, a visitor centre opened in 2022 that turns mountain rubbish into art and asks visitors to carry a 1 kg bag of waste back down. It’s worth a look if it’s open when you pass.

A little further on is Hotel Everest View, opened in 1971. Order a hot drink on the terrace and look up the valley: Everest rises behind the long Nuptse ridge, with Lhotse beside it and Ama Dablam to the right. Come early, because cloud often builds before noon.

The way back drops to Khumjung, below the sacred peak of Khumbila, where the Himalayan Trust school has taught local children since 1961. Next door is Khunde, with the hospital Hillary founded in 1966. You’re back in Namche for a late lunch and a free afternoon, and if it’s Saturday, the weekly market is on.

The first hours are the easiest walking of the trek and the best views. A wide path runs along the hillside high above the Dudh Koshi, with Lhotse and Everest ahead and Thamserku, Kangtega and Ama Dablam much closer. Ama Dablam is usually translated as “mother’s necklace”: its long ridges look like a mother’s arms, and its hanging glacier like the pendant Sherpa women wear.

After Kyangjuma you give back all that height, dropping through forest to the river at Phunki Tenga, a common lunch stop. Then it’s about two hours uphill through fir and rhododendron, which flowers on these slopes in spring.

Tengboche sits on a broad ridge top, and the air turns sharp and cold once the sun goes. Lama Gulu built the monastery in 1916, about 60 monks live here, and Everest expeditions still stop to light candles and ask for a safe climb. In the tenth Tibetan month, usually October or November, it holds Mani Rimdu, the most important Sherpa festival, with masked dances.

Get up for the sunrise if you can, when the first light turns the top of Everest and Ama Dablam gold. Then you head back the way you came: a steep drop to Phunki Tenga, a climb up to Kyangjuma and the hillside path round to Namche, with Everest behind you this time. Turn around now and then, or you’ll miss it.

You have lunch in Namche and then go down the long hill you climbed on Day 3. It’s hard on the knees and toes, so tighten your laces and use your poles. The Hillary bridge, Jorsale and the park gate come one after another, and the air gets warmer and thicker as you drop.

Monjo is a small village of guesthouses beside the river, just below the gate. It’s a long day, but you’ll sleep well, more than 1,000 m lower than last night.

A shorter day, and mostly a gentle one. The trail runs downstream beside the Dudh Koshi through Benkar and Phakding, back over the same bridges, and you’ll notice things you missed when your eyes were on the path: waterfalls on the far bank, vegetable gardens behind the lodges, children walking to school.

Beyond Ghat comes the catch. Lukla is well above the river, so the last stretch through Chheplung is uphill, and after six days of walking it can feel longer than it is.

Lukla feels almost like a city after the trail, with cafés and gear shops near the airstrip. Tonight is your last evening with your porters, who don’t fly out with you, so share a meal, hand over their tips and say thanks. Repack your bag and make sure it’s within the airline’s weight limit.

Flights out of Lukla go in the morning, while the air is usually calm. Taking off is as memorable as landing: the plane races down the slope and out over the drop into the valley.

You land in Kathmandu or, in the busy months, at Manthali, and finish the trip by tourist bus or shared jeep. Cloud at Lukla can hold flights up for a day or more, which is why that spare day matters.

Once you’ve had a shower, the rest of the day is free, and in the evening we get together for a farewell dinner.

Your trek ends here. We collect you from the hotel around three hours ahead of an international flight.

With more days to spare, Kathmandu’s old squares and temples, a few days in Pokhara or a safari in Chitwan are easy to add.