Dhaulagiri Circuit Trek

We meet you at the airport and take you to your hotel. The afternoon is free. In the evening we go through the route in detail, because this is not a teahouse trek and your equipment and training are more important than usual. We check your equipment against the list and hire anything that is missing.

The flight takes twenty-five minutes, or the drive six to seven hours along the Trishuli if the weather prevents flying. The afternoon is for final shopping and for dividing your luggage between what the porters carry and what you carry. There are no shops after tomorrow.

A long morning by jeep up the Myagdi Khola to Darbang, on a road that soon becomes unpaved and further on becomes unreliable. From the roadhead we walk for two to three hours through terraced fields to Dharapani and set up the first camp. The area is subtropical, green and warm.

You climb through Magar villages of stone and slate houses, which see very few trekkers. A long climb leads to the ridge at Naura, followed by a traverse to Muri. This is still farmland, and villagers often offer cucumber to passing walkers.

Today the valley narrows. The trail descends to the Myagdi Khola and follows the north bank along exposed sections that have been rebuilt several times after landslides. The day takes seven hours, with a good deal of ascent and descent, and ends at Boghara, the last village in the valley.

You pass Lipshe, the last permanent settlement, and enter forest of oak, then bamboo, then rhododendron. The path crosses the river on log bridges, which the crew often rebuild as needed. Dobang is a forest clearing rather than a village, and beyond this point the valley is uninhabited.

The morning is spent in deep forest, wet underfoot, with the river loud below and occasional views of Dhaulagiri through the trees. Sallaghari is a clearing in pine forest at the upper edge of the tree line. It is the last camp with firewood and the last sheltered camp.

You leave the forest and enter the moraine. The day is deliberately short, four hours, because both the terrain and the altitude change significantly today. Italian Base Camp is in a meadow below the west face, with the mountain filling the head of the valley. Most people spend the evening outside watching the mountain at dusk.

This is an active rest day. We walk for two to three hours up the side of the valley and return to sleep lower, which helps acclimatisation. From today your guide measures everyone's oxygen saturation morning and evening and records it, so that any decline is clearly identified.

This is the narrowest part of the route. The trail follows the Chonbarden gorge on scree and rock slabs below loose ground, and helmets are worn for the whole section. You reach the glacier in the afternoon. Glacier Camp is on moraine at 4,200 m, and the ice can be heard moving through the night.

A four-hour climb up the Chonbarden glacier, roped where the crew consider it necessary, to the shelf below the north face. Dhaulagiri Base Camp, at 4,740 m, lies between Tukuche Peak on one side and the north face of an 8,000 m mountain on the other, in a bowl of ice that is constantly active.

The second acclimatisation day. Part of the day is spent on the ice learning to use crampons and hold an ice axe, whether or not you have done so before. In the afternoon there is a short walk up towards the icefall. Tomorrow is the hardest day of the trek, and this preparation is important.

You set off before dawn. For most of the morning you climb snow slopes at a moderate angle to the cairns and prayer flags of the French Pass at 5,360 m, which has views of Dhaulagiri I and II, Tukuche and Sita Chuchura. The descent is on snow into Hidden Valley, a flat, enclosed and very quiet valley.

This day is held in reserve. If snow has closed the French Pass, someone needs an extra day, or the weather has changed while we were at base camp, this day absorbs the delay. If it is not needed, those who are fit and willing can walk up towards Dhampus Peak for the morning, and the rest of the group rests at 5,050 m.

This is the longest and hardest day of the trek, and you will be briefed on it in advance. A four-hour traverse on snow and rock leads to the Dhampus Pass at 5,240 m, with Nilgiri and the western end of the Annapurna range ahead. You then descend more than 1,500 m on scree, which is hard on the knees. The day takes nine hours in total and ends at the grazing ground of Yak Kharka.

You descend through juniper and then apple orchards to Marpha, a village of whitewashed houses and flagstone streets. There is time to visit the distillery and have a full lunch before a short walk or drive to Jomsom. Tonight you stay in a lodge with a bed, a hot shower and a private room.

The Jomsom flight leaves at first light, because the Kali Gandaki wind closes the airstrip by mid-morning. The twenty-minute flight follows the deepest gorge in the world down to Pokhara, and you continue to Kathmandu by air or by road. In the evening there is a group dinner.

You have a free morning and are transferred to the airport three hours before your flight. If bad weather at Jomsom has delayed us by a day, this day makes up for it, and we will already have contacted your airline if needed.