Kharta Valley Trekking

Elevation:3656m

We will receive you either at Lhasa Airport or at the Lhasa Tran Station. After small induction with your tour guide and driver along the way, you will be taken to your hotel. 

Its recommend to take a rest in hotel for some time to get acclimatize to High altitude of Tibet. Depending on time, by the evening some one from Agency will come to meet you at the hotels and discuss the itinerary and other stuff. Your guide will meet you next morning for visit to Local attractions in Lhasa.

Jokhang Temple and Sera monastery.

In the morning,  your guide will meet you at the hotel after the breakfast. Attraction for the morning is a visit to Jokhang temple. It is the holiest temple or Macca of Tibetan Buddhism.

You will take a walk to the temple. After the visit, you can explore the local market on you own-self. Your guide will fix the time and meet up place for afternoon tour. 

In the afternoon you will visit the Sera Monastery. It is most preserved monastery in Tibet. In the monastery you can sit and observe monks debating in courtyard. 

If you would like explore the monastery on your own. You can tell your guide to give you some free times to explore the monastery on your own.

Potala Palace,  and Drepung Monastery

You will visit the grand Potala Palace in the morning. The palace is an important landmark of Tibet and the masterpiece of Tibetan Architecture.

It was first built by King Songtsen Gampo, the 33rd king of Tibet’s Yurlung dynasty. Later in 17th century it was rebuilt by 5th Dalai Lama and use it as resident of successive Dalai Lama and his government. 

It is challenging to walk up the stair to 13th floor, but it is worthwhile to visit the spiritual palace, that is listed on the world heritage sites. you will climb up from the front and descent from the backside of the palace.

We will visit the Drepung Monastery in the afternoon. It is once the largest monastery in the world housing over 10,000 monks. There are lots to see along the winding and narrow lane of the monastery.

This is the first days outside Lhasa and your sleep altitude will gradually increase.

We will start at 9:00 am in morning from your hotel. Today’s route covers three mountain passes ( Khampa La Pass, Karola Pass, and Simi La Pass) and one lake called Yamdrok Lake. 

The highest altitude for the day is at 5000 meters at Karalo Pass. and the sleeping altitude is at 3950m in Gyantse. 

We will have a lunch at Nagartse town at Lhasa Restaurant.

Once when we will reach Gyantse town. You will have free time to explore the ancient traditional part of town.

We will start in the morning about 10:00 Am. First we will visit the Palchoe Monastery. Its about 15 walk from Hotel.

The Palchoe monastery is well known for its Kumbum Stupa. The monastery was built in 14th Century by local king for remembrance  of his diseased mother. 

Initially the monastery complex consider 15 house belonging to different school of Tibetan Buddhism. You will have your own time to explore the monastery on your own.

After the monastery we will visit the Gyantse fort. It is the most beautiful fort in Tibet and its the point of resistance by Local Tibetan Army during the British expedition to Tibet. 

We will drive to the Shigatse town, its about 90 kilometers from Gyantse town. As soon as we reach the town we will visit the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.

Tashi Lhunpo Monastery is the forth biggest monastery in Central Tibet and it is the seat of Panchen Lama. 

The main attraction of the monastery is 26 meters tall statue of Maiterya Buddha. This statue was built in 1914 for those killed in first world war. 

The statue contains 6700 teals of gold and 150 metric tons of copper and inside the statue there is an enormous juniper tree from Reting monastery as a life-supporting axis, Sok-shing in Tibetan. 

The monastery is also have tomb stupa of successive Panchen Lamas.

Drive from Shigatse to Shelkar. Its about 238 Kilometers with three mountain pass, ThangLa 4050m, Tso La (4520m), Gyatso La (5230m).

Along the way we will have lunch at a Local restaurant in Lhatse. As we reach at the Shelkar we will go to visit the Shelkar fort and Shelkar Monastery in the town. 

For the night we will set up camp and have dinner in the camp with your tour guide and driver. 

We will cover distance of 116 kilometers. As we leave the Shelkar town after 10 kilometers we will divert Friendship Highway and drive southward towards himalayas. As we stop at the Gue-La Pass (5150m) for this panaromic view of five of world 15th highest peaks, including Everest, Lhotse ( the 4th), Makalu ( The 5th), Cho Oyu (the 6th) and Gyachung Kang (the 15th).

As we descend from the pass, we will divert once again towards the village of Kharta. We will set up the camp at Kharta Chu. Here your Trekking guide will meet the yaks and yaks men for the trek. We will have dinner at the camp.

Trek to Damphu. Today marks the beginning of Kharta Valley Trekking. We will cover 10 kilometers with ascent of 371 meters.

We will trek in the Dambuk Chu River valley passing Yulok and Yulba settlements. Here you will find stone houses and barley fields.

As the Valley narrows down it leads to two trails. One on the right side leads to Langma-La, From where we will return, and other one leads to Shaula Pass. We will take the second one. After gradual Ascend for hours, we will reach our camp for the night.

Trek is for only few hours, covering 6 km of distance with elevation gain of 654m. First we will trek on a small trail to reach cairn. As we continuously ascend to rocky trial to reach ShauTso Pond. We will camp here for the night. 

From our camp we will have a great view of Makalu on south and Jomo Lonzo (north of Makalu). Near by there are few lakes.  You can take rest of the day to enjoy and explore the region. 

We will cover 10 kilometer with ascent of 262m and descent of 914m. The trek begun earlier as the trek in more challenging. Initially we will ascending towards a Shau La pass at 4970m.

The pass is marked by Tibetan Prayer Flags, from here you will have inspiring panoramic view of mountains including, Everest (8848m, the world’s highest peak), Makalu (8475m, #5) and Lhotse (8501m, #4). At the pass you will find 1 meter thick fortification walls guarding against Gurkha invasions in the 18th century. The pass is nowadays use by local Tibetan to transport timber. 

Soon after the pass, we will descent into lush pastures and high alpine meadows and tundra. Further descent takes us through juniper forest and our camp for the night.

Our camp is right above Kamo Tsangpo Valley.

Cover distant of 5 kilometers with gain of 420m in elevation. After descent for 15 minutes from our camp, we will begin ascending steeply out of Joksham. Further trek takes us through forests with some of most interesting scenery in the Tibet Himalaya.

Traversing further takes us to many nomad camping area and further to Tso Nak, the black lake (4320m) and another small pass with views Lhotse Shar (east).

As we walk further more, we will reach junction of valleys that form the Karma Tsangpo (river). Descend further to Nomadic Camp called Thangsum. We will camp here for the night and you can enjoy rest of the with nomads drinking Tibetan Yak butter tea.

Hike of the day is for 4 kilometers with 131m gain in elevation and descend for 196m. 

As we leave our camp, we will branches off the trail to Langma La. The panorama of Himalaya is awe-inspiring. While trekking along the flowering and high meadows, we will climb and descend to Shaling Tso trail. After which we will reach a small nomad camp. Further ascending to cairn and descending steeply to Rapak, the land of Juniper. 

From this point we can see our camping site at Pathang. Yet we have descent steeply towards the rivet and Ascending again a bit to our camp. 

It is the main valley of Kangshung valley Glacier, which we will be trekking in coming days. 

Today we will take an hour hike to the Guru Rinpoches cave temple. It is also known as the Beyul or hidden sanctuary. If you take a further hour trek you will reach a lake.

View from the Lake is awesome and circumambulating the lake is very energetic. Yet its important to know that there is no proper trail on the first part of this trail.

Total distance covered today is about 5 hours, with 342m gain in elevation and decent for another 339m. 

The Trail is for 7 kilometers with 500m gain in elevation to Pethang Ringmo. 

As we trek on a small trail, it gradually become steeper along rim of Kangshung Glacier. This part may seems a never ends trekking. 

At the end of the climb, a valley opens up with a huge view of Lhotse and Mt Everest, dominating the valley. You are much closer to awesome face of Chomo Lonzo. 

The trail continue to ascend above few nomadic camp to reach large meadows of lush grass, Pethang Ringmo. This is the Basecamp for George Mallory and the 1921 Everest Reconnaissance Team. It is also know as east basecamp of everest. 

We will further continue to our camp for the night at Wapka.

Its day off at the wonderful campsite. You can take a day trail to any directions. The Himalayan panoramic view from the camp is also a great to relex and enjoy. 

There is another option to do a day hike to Wapka Ri(5365m), the himalayan view is incredible from there.

A three hours trek from the camp takes us to higher basecamp at 5290m called Karbus. It is recommend for well acclimatized group. It is a stunning location surrounded by mountains and stunning view of Kangshung face of Everest and Lhotse.

 Hiking further you will see the steep amphitheatical fall from Lhotse. On the north of camp there are two green and gray lakes on the ridge overlooking the Kangshung Valley.

After enjoying the awesome Himalayan views at Karbus. We will head back to our lovely camp at Pethang Ringmo.

Trail for the day is longer for 11 kilometer, There is ascent of 734m and 435m in descend. 

We are basically on return trail yet the views are always surprisingly different. Cross the river and climb for another hour to reach the Rabka Chu Meadow camp.  Traverse and climb out a valley at Chahataphu to spectacular views of glaciated valley on the opposite side.

Further trekking for couple of house, we head into the main valley leading to the pass. We will camp at Nomad Camp (Langma La Base Camp), 20 minutes from Melogma Lake.

An ascend to Langma La take about 2 hours. Here view of Lhotse Shar, Lhotse, Everest, Makalu are further.

Hike up the pass (5390m), followed by series of steep descents. Pass thought guitar-shaped lake called Damnyen Tso. There are more descent along rocky moraine and cliff-side trails to series of Nomad camp. 

When the valley ends terrain changes to drier as we will reach our camp. From here there is possiblity to see Mt Kangchenjunga from above the Ridges. 

We will find our camp hidden  near the village of Lundrubling.

There is a wonderful Village with billowing barley field and old houses just around the corner. We have less than three house of hike to Kharta as road is being extended. 

we will our driver at Karta, we will driver Tashizong village. Stay over night in Chomolungma Hotel.

At Tashi Zong we will take Eco Bus to Rongbuk Monastery. Stay over night at the tent hostel. 

In the morning we will have a visit for Rongbuk Monastery and view of Everest. After this we will drive back Old Tingri for the night.

The drive from the monastery to Shigatse is about 350 km, we will have to take eco-bus from Rongbuk to Tashizom village and change to our usual car to Shigatse. 

Back to Lhasa to reach earlier to enjoy your last evening in old city of Lhasa and a farewell dinner with driver and trekking tour guide.

You will be leaving Tibet. Your Tour Guide and Drivers will escort you to either at airport or the Train Station.