Dolpo – Remote Country Trek

DOLPO - The Bon - Po Kingdom…Explore by discovering the unknown from the known…

Journey into remote rugged sanctity that was once hidden to the world…explore raw beauty & supernatural nature that displays an ancient culture which blends with the Shamanistic mystique religion dating back to the 9-10th century…Experience raw, pure adventure, to the core…

Know your territory before treading it:
Dolpo is the most remote and least developed district in Nepal.

Ba-Yul, the hidden land of Dolpo, saw its first human inhabitants in a visit by the Rokpa farmers & Drokpa nomads who waded in from Tibet in the 10th century. Although a few anthropologists and geographers had explored the region before, the entire district was closed to trekkers until 1989 when the southern part of Dolpo was opened to organized trekking groups. Peter Mathiessen’s ‘The Snow Leopard’ and Snellgrove’s ‘Himalayan Pilgrimage’ have contributed a lot to the mystique and attraction that is ‘Dolpo’ today.

Lying midway between the Tibetan Plateau and the Dhaulagiri Himal range, Dolpo is one of the highest inhabited lands on earth. Geographically a southern extension of Tibet, it lies within the borders of the kingdom of Nepal, & since 1984 has been the country’s largest National and Conservation Park; the park sustains an abundance of wild life including Musk Deer, Himalayan Blue Sheep and the legendary elusive Snow Leopard, as well as being home to a fascinating race of Tibetan speaking people. The hardy highlanders of Dolpo are traders, exchanging barley for Tibetan rock salt and they take their yaks onto the Tibetan plateau during the summer for grazing.

Made famous by Peter Matheson’s book the Snow Leopard, the boundaries of the park include 3,500 square kilometers of land, mostly above 4,000 meters. Before 1989, when the southern regions were opened to trekking groups, very few explorers had visited the area. Two notable visits were the first mountaineering expedition by Dr. Herbert Tichy in 1953 based in Kaigon and the other visit by John Tyson in the early sixties.

Dolpo, one of the most beautiful treks in the remote far corners of Nepal, is very rarely visited by outsiders.

Dolpo was first explored by David Snellgrove in 1956, & later on, this area was also visited by Peter Mathiessen in 1970, and the account of his journey is well described in his classic novel "The Snow Leopard".

From Juphal village, we begin this wonderful adventure, encountering rugged, but beautiful territory, friendly people with faces depicting harsh climates, sturdy villages, pristine valleys and serene forest of pines, oaks and rhododendrons, the trek passes many gigantic mountain ranges and goes over the Numala pass at 5,400m till we reach the Phoksundo lake at Ringmo village in the "Phoksundo National Park".

The lake is just magnificent. It is 4.8 km long, 1.8km wide and said to be 650m deep. It is known for its aquamarine color, a greenish blue similar to a special Tibetan turquoise .There is no aquatic life in the lake, which helps to make the waters brilliantly clear. If you toss a rock in, you can watch it for a long time as it sinks to the bottom. According to legend, Phoksundo Lake was formed by a spiteful female demon.

In the ‘Buddhist Himalaya’, David Snellgrove recounts how the demon was fleeing from the saint Padmasambhava and gave the village people a turquoise after they promised not to say that she had passed by. The legend goes on to say that Padmasambhava, however, turned the turquoise into a lump of dung, which upset the local folks so much they revealed the demon's whereabouts. She, in an act of vengeance, caused a flood. It is said you can see the remains of a village below the lake's surface.

At Ringmo, the highlights of our trip, we will spend two nights here to enjoy the beauty of the deep blue waters of the Phoksundo Lake and the surrounding snow peaks of Kanjibro Himal, with time to visit the nearby isolated village of Ringmo and its quiet mysterious Monastery.