Langtang Valley and Gosaikunda Trek – 15 Days

Our driver will be waiting outside arrivals at Tribhuvan International Airport with a sign showing your name, ready to take you to your hotel. After a long flight, use the rest of the day to recover.

In the afternoon your guide visits to go through the route with you, from the Langtang Valley up to Tserko Ri and across to Gosaikunda and Helambu. Tserko Ri and the Laurebina La are cold, windy places, so they’ll look over your boots, warm layers and gloves, and take your passport details for the permits.

If you’re missing anything, Thamel’s shops can sell or rent it to you. Go to bed early, as the shared jeep leaves after breakfast.

After breakfast a shared jeep takes you north out of the Kathmandu Valley, down to Trishuli Bazaar and then up the Trishuli River to Betrawati. A Bailey bridge now carries the road here, put up after the flood of August 2026 damaged the old bridge.

From Betrawati the road climbs in tight bends to Dhunche, the main town of Rasuwa district, where your Langtang National Park permit is checked. It then follows the hillside to Thulo Syabru, a Tamang village whose houses line a narrow ridge.

The road is narrow and rough in places, so expect a slow, bumpy day. If you get carsick, ask for a front seat and take something for it before you set off. Evenings on the ridge are cooler than in Kathmandu, so keep a warm layer handy.

The day begins with a steep drop on stone steps from the ridge, past terraced fields, to the Langtang Khola near the small settlement of Bamboo. From here you walk upstream, and the river stays beside you for the next three days.

The trail rises gently through damp, shady forest of oak, maple and rhododendron, with thickets of bamboo near the water and moss on almost every trunk. A few short climbs take you over rocky spurs before the path drops back towards the river. Rimche, a cluster of lodges above the valley, comes shortly before the end of the day.

Down here the air is mild and moist, very different from the dry cold higher up. Lama Hotel isn’t one hotel but a handful of lodges in a forest clearing. With no snow peaks in sight, it’s a quiet evening: a hot shower if there is one, dinner by the stove and an early night.

The trail keeps climbing beside the river, steeply at first, and through gaps in the trees you start to see Langtang Lirung ahead, the highest summit anywhere in the national park. Slowly the forest thins and the trees get smaller.

At Ghoda Tabela the valley widens into grazing land with stone yak shelters, and the walking gets easier. Further on, look for prayer wheels turned by streams and long mani walls, a sign that you’re entering Tibetan Buddhist country.

Langtang village stands on the valley floor at 3,430 m. The old village was buried by the avalanche that followed the earthquake of 25 April 2015, and the families who survived came back and rebuilt. Many of today’s lodges are theirs, so a night here supports the valley’s recovery.

This is the biggest climb of the trek so far, close to 1,000 m, so walk slowly and drink often. A mild headache on your first night above 3,000 m is common; tell your guide if it gets worse.

A short walk this morning. The path climbs gently up the open valley through Mundu, past chortens and mani walls, with glaciers hanging off the peaks on both sides. You reach Kyanjin Gompa, the last village in the valley, by late morning.

After an early lunch, perhaps with a slice of the local yak cheese, you climb the steep, grassy ridge above the village to Kyanjin Ri, gaining about 900 m to the higher of its two tops, at 4,773 m. The lower top, about an hour short of it, is a good place to turn round if you’re tired. From up here, Langtang Lirung and its glaciers sit right across the valley.

Cloud often builds in the afternoon, so the views may come and go. It’s a big day for height gained, but you sleep back down at Kyanjin, which helps your body get ready for Tserko Ri tomorrow.

The longest climb of the trip. You set off from Kyanjin in the dark with a headlamp and climb steadily up a rough, stony trail. The summit is more than 1,100 m above the village, so the pace is slow and the breaks are frequent.

Tserko Ri, at 4,985 m, is the highest of the viewpoints above Kyanjin. From the top you look out over the whole Langtang range, and on a clear day you can pick out Shishapangma, the 8,000 m mountain on the Tibetan side of the border.

There’s no water on the way up and the wind can be strong near the top, so carry at least two litres and a windproof layer. At nearly 5,000 m your breathing never quite catches up, so take short steps and stop whenever you need to.

You come back the same way and reach Kyanjin in the afternoon, tired but with the biggest climb of the trip behind you. Rest, eat well and sleep early.

Today you walk back down the valley, losing about 1,400 m. It’s a long day, though nearly all downhill, and your breathing gets easier as you lose height.

You pass back through Mundu and Langtang village to Ghoda Tabela, where the forest begins again. Walking the other way, you notice new things: the shapes of the glaciers on the far side, the prayers carved into the mani stones and, in spring, rhododendrons in flower.

The long descent is hard on the knees, so use your poles and take shorter steps on the steep sections. Lama Hotel feels warm and green after the high valley. Have a good dinner and rest your legs.

A shorter day through the forest. The trail drops past Rimche and follows the river down to Bamboo, where you leave the valley trail and climb the stone steps back up to Thulo Syabru.

That last climb is steep and comes after a morning of downhill walking, so keep something in reserve. Early in the day, when the forest is quiet, watch the treetops for grey langurs and listen for birds by the river.

With the Langtang half of the trek done, use the evening to get ready for the hills ahead: dry socks, warm layers for Gosaikunda and snacks for the pass. Tomorrow’s trail climbs the steep, forested ridge rising behind the village.

Today you leave the Langtang Valley behind and head south towards Gosaikunda. The trail climbs straight up the ridge behind Thulo Syabru, gaining about 1,100 m, with some steep stretches on old stone steps. Higher up, the path eases and runs through quiet rhododendron forest.

On clear days, look back for views of the Langtang range and the Ganesh Himal. The lodges on this side are smaller and further apart than in the Langtang Valley.

Sing Gompa, also called Chandanbari, sits at about 3,300 m. It has a historic monastery, where visitors light butter lamps, and a small cheese factory. Both keep irregular hours, but if the yak cheese is on the lodge menu, try it. You sleep more than 1,000 m higher than last night, so take it easy this evening and drink plenty of water.

A steep climb of more than 1,000 m. The trail leaves the forest at Cholang Pati, an area known as red panda habitat, and climbs to Laurebina, a viewpoint with a few lodges on an open ridge.

Above Laurebina the path crosses bare, steep slopes high above the valley and passes smaller lakes, including Saraswati Kunda and Bhairab Kunda, before you reach Gosaikunda.

The lake lies at 4,380 m in a bowl of grey rock and is the best known of 108 lakes in the area. Hindus believe Shiva created it by striking the ground with his trident to find water to cool his throat after swallowing poison. Its water flows out to become the Trishuli River, and for about six months a year the surface is frozen.

You’re well acclimatized after Kyanjin, but sleeping more than 1,000 m higher than last night is still a big jump. Go slowly, keep drinking, and speak up straight away if you feel a headache or dizziness coming on.

You start early and climb above Gosaikunda past more small lakes to the Laurebina La, also called the Surya Kunda pass. At 4,610 m it’s the highest point of the crossing, and your last chance to look back over the lakes.

Just beyond the pass lies Surya Kunda, another of the area’s lakes. From there the trail drops steeply over rock and loose stones to Phedi, then winds up and down along the side of the valley, in and out of side gullies, to Ghopte. The place was long known as Ghopte Odar, odar being the Nepali word for a cave or rock shelter, and today a few lodges stand nearby.

This is one of the hardest days of the trek: a high pass, a long, knee-jarring descent and more climbing after it. Cloud can close in fast on this side and the trail is easy to lose in fog, so stay close to your guide. If snow or bad weather makes the pass unsafe, your guide takes the group back down to Dhunche instead.

From Ghopte the trail climbs through forest to Tharepati, a few lodges on a ridge top at about 3,650 m, the highest point of the Helambu trails. On a clear day it’s one of the best viewpoints of the trek, with the Langtang range and the Ganesh Himal lined up across the northern skyline.

From Tharepati you turn south and follow the ridge down through thick forest and open grazing land to Magingoth, a handful of lodges beside the yak pastures, and on to Kutumsang. The forest is full of birdsong, and the descent is long, so keep your poles out.

Kutumsang, at about 2,500 m, is a village of lodges and fields at the edge of Langtang National Park. After several cold nights up high, the warmer air and the sounds of village life make a welcome change.

The trail follows the ridge south through forest and farmland. Your first village is Golphu Bhanjyang, often written Gul Bhanjyang, a fairly new settlement of Gurung, Tamang, Sherpa and Dalit families. From there you climb over a forested hill to Chipling, a bigger village with plenty of lodges.

Below Chipling the path drops to Pati Bhanjyang, a saddle named after its pati, a traditional rest shelter, where there are lodges and a police post. A last climb brings you up to Chisapani.

Chisapani, whose name means “cold water”, sits at about 2,200 m inside Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park. On a clear evening or early morning, look north for the Himalaya.

It’s the last night of the trek, the natural time to eat with your guide and porters and hand over their tips.

A last morning on foot. From Chisapani the trail climbs gently to Burlang Bhanjyang, a pass on the Shivapuri ridge, then heads down through oak forest to the Tamang village of Mulkharka, with the Kathmandu Valley spread out below.

From Mulkharka you drop to Sundarijal at the edge of the national park, where a small dam holds a reservoir and a hydropower station has been running since 1934. A shared jeep covers the last 15 km from here to Kathmandu.

That evening, come out with us for a farewell dinner and a toast to the valley, the lakes and the pass.

Your trek ends today, and we drop you at Tribhuvan International Airport around three hours ahead of your flight.

With more time, ask us about a few days in Pokhara, a safari in Chitwan or a day exploring the old towns of Bhaktapur and Patan.