Kailash Express, by Air and Helicopter

Because it skips the plateau drive entirely. The overland routes spend four days crossing western Tibet by road from either Kerung or Lhasa. This one flies to the far northwest corner of Nepal, hops the border by helicopter, and reaches Taklakot, twenty kilometres from Tibet, on the fourth day. The mountain is the same. The approach is a fifth of the distance.

Acclimatisation, and we would rather say so plainly. On day three you sleep at 150 m in Nepalgunj. On day four you sleep at 3,900 m in Taklakot. That is a gain no doctor would recommend, and it is the reason day five exists and is not optional. This route suits people who are fit, who have been high before, or who have time to arrive in Nepal early and walk.

Overland by road both ways is sixteen days and the gentlest on the body. Via Lhasa is fourteen and adds the monasteries. Via Beijing is the most comfortable and the dearest. This is eleven days and the hardest to acclimatise on, and it exists because some pilgrims genuinely cannot take three weeks off.

Anyone who has had altitude sickness before, anyone over seventy without a recent high-altitude trip behind them, anyone with heart or lung disease, and anyone who has never been above 3,000 m. None of that is a judgement about fitness. It is about how fast this itinerary climbs, and the overland trip is the better answer for all of them.

Likely enough that we build a day in for it. Simikot has a 549 m runway at nearly 3,000 m, and the aircraft fly only in clear, still morning air. Delays of one to three days happen every season, in both directions. Most trips lose nothing. Some lose a day. A few lose more, and we will not pretend otherwise.

We keep you fed and housed and we start work on your onward flight immediately. The itinerary holds one spare day for exactly this. Beyond that day the extra nights and any airline change are at your cost, which is why we ask everyone to book an international flight that can be moved, and to insure for travel delay.

There is now, since a road and bridge were built from Simikot to the border in 2016, and it is 51 km. It is also rough, slow and prone to slides, and it takes the best part of a day each way. We use the helicopter because it turns that day into twenty minutes, and because the road is not dependable in the season.

Strict. The Simikot aircraft and the helicopter together allow about 15 kg checked and a small daypack. Anything beyond it either waits in Nepalgunj or flies on a later aircraft if there is room. Pack for eleven days accordingly, and leave the rest at your Kathmandu hotel, which costs nothing.

Three days and 53 km, the same circuit every Kailash pilgrim walks. The first day is twelve kilometres and gentle. The second is twenty two kilometres over the Dolma La at 5,630 m, nine to ten hours, and is hard by any measure. The third is twelve kilometres downhill and finishes before lunch.

On the first and third days, arranged at Darchen for roughly $180 to $260 with a handler. On the pass day a horse takes you only as far as the ground allows, and everybody walks the steep section above Shiva Tsal. Decide the evening before rather than on the morning, because the animals are allocated in turn.

You return to Darchen with a crew member and rejoin the group when it comes round. That decision is made at Dirapuk in the morning, before the pass, not halfway up it. Nobody is carried over the Dolma La, and on this route more than the others we would rather someone stopped early than pressed on.

The rest day at Taklakot, oxygen saturation taken and written down twice a day, bottled oxygen and a portable pressure chamber travelling with the group, and a guide whose instruction to descend is final. We also drop you to Taklakot at 3,900 m the moment the kora is finished, rather than keeping you high for another night.

No, and this matters more on this route than any other. There is no helicopter evacuation anywhere in Ngari. Coming down means a vehicle and a road, back the way you came, and the border at Hilsa may or may not be open at the hour you need it. Your insurance must cover evacuation to 6,000 m, and we do check.

Ask your own doctor, and ask early enough to try it at home first. On a profile this steep more travellers take it than on our other Kailash trips. It is not a substitute for the rest day, for drinking properly, or for telling your guide the moment your head hurts.

The same four as any Kailash journey: a Tibet Travel Permit, an Alien's Travel Permit, a military permit and a foreign affairs permit, all arranged by us. On top is the Chinese group visa issued in Kathmandu, which takes four working days and requires a party of at least five travelling together.

Eight weeks at the very least. The Tibet Travel Permit takes eight or nine working days once the itinerary is paid for, and the Kailash area permits are issued in Ngari at their own pace. Add the group visa and the Simikot flight, which sells out in the season, and two months is the honest minimum.

May to September. The Dolma La holds snow before and after, the kora guesthouses close for the winter, and Tibet routinely shuts to foreign visitors for the whole of March. On this route add one more consideration: the Simikot flights are at their most reliable in the clear weeks of May and September.

Hotels in Kathmandu and Nepalgunj, a plain hotel in Taklakot with heating and hot water, a lakeside guesthouse at Mansarovar, and two nights in kora guesthouses at Dirapuk and Zuthulpuk. Those last two are shared rooms, a mattress and a quilt, no heating and an outside toilet.

Vegetarian throughout, which is the convention around the mountain. Dal bhat and Nepali food to Simikot, Tibetan and Chinese food beyond it, and our own cook carrying supplies for the kora. Appetite disappears at height, so we cook soup first and often, and nobody is left to skip a meal quietly.

In the hotels, yes, with a Chinese adaptor beyond the border. At Mansarovar and on the kora, no. Your Nepali sim stops working in Tibet, Chinese sims do not reach the kora, and the usual apps are blocked in China. Bring a battery pack and keep it inside your jacket, because cold drains one faster than use.

Wind protection above extra warmth, because the plateau wind is relentless and dry. A four season sleeping bag for the two kora nights. Far more sun cream and lip balm than seems reasonable. And a change of clothes in your daypack, because if the helicopter is delayed your duffel may be on the other side of a mountain range.

A full refund of what you have paid us if it happens before departure, and we will offer you the overland trip instead where dates allow. If a closure strands the group inside Tibet we bring you out through the other crossing and carry that cost ourselves.