Langtang Valley and Gosainkunda Trek

It is the same first half and then a second one. The valley trek turns round at Kyanjin and walks out. This one walks out as far as Thulo Syabru, turns south and climbs a different ridge to Gosainkunda at 4,380 m, which adds two days, a second high camp and the part of the region that matters to Nepalis rather than to trekkers.

The circuit crosses the Laurebina La at 4,610 m the morning after Gosainkunda and walks south through Helambu to Sundarijal, near Kathmandu. This trek does not cross the pass. You climb towards it for the view, come back to the lake and descend to Dhunche the way you came up. Two days shorter, one permit fewer, and no snow-covered pass between you and a road.

If you have sixteen days, like the idea of finishing on foot an hour from your hotel and are happy to be committed on a pass at 4,610 m, take the circuit. If you have a fortnight, are trekking in early spring or late autumn when the pass holds snow, or simply want a route you can turn round on at any point, take this one.

Fit enough for ten consecutive days of five to seven hours on rough ground with a daypack. There are three days that stand out: 960 m up to Langtang village, 1,080 m up to Sing Gompa, and nearly 1,400 m down to Dhunche. Nothing on the route is technical and nothing needs a rope.

Yes, with one caveat. The walking is well within reach of a regular hillwalker. The altitude is not trivial: you sleep at 4,380 m and most people climb to nearly 5,000 m on day 6. If this is your first time above 3,500 m, read the altitude section properly rather than skimming it.

We take children from twelve with a parent, and the Langtang half suits families well. The Gosainkunda half is a harder ask for a young walker: two big climbing days, thinner air and colder nights. Tell us their ages and their walking history and we will say honestly what we think.

Because there is no trail between the head of the Langtang valley and the Gosainkunda ridge. They are separate drainages that meet low down at Thulo Syabru. Everybody who does both walks down to that junction and back up. It feels like a waste of a day until you are on the second climb and realise it is a completely different landscape.

Yes, and it is a good short trek: Dhunche to Sing Gompa to the lakes and back is five or six days. We run it. What you lose is the glaciers, the yak pastures and Tserko Ri, and the acclimatisation those days give you before the lakes.

Tserko Ri at 4,984 m is the better view and about six hours there and back with 1,100 m of climbing. Kyanjin Ri at roughly 4,770 m takes two to three hours and shows you most of the same thing. Your guide will decide on the morning based on how you slept and how the sky looks, not on what you booked.

A handful of stone lodges, a shrine at the water, a rock in the lake that pilgrims identify with Shiva, and a chain of smaller lakes above and below. In August it is the busiest high place in Nepal. For the rest of the year it is a cold, silent basin with almost nobody in it.

Yes. Altitude sickness begins in earnest above 3,500 m and Gosainkunda is nearly 900 m above that. The saving grace here is that you reach the lakes already part-acclimatised from the Langtang half, and you sleep only one night that high.

It is, which is why we set it out on this page rather than burying it. The second half climbs 2,130 m in two days, which would be reckless as a standalone trek and is acceptable here only because of the five days you spent in the Langtang valley first. If you feel wrong at Sing Gompa, say so before you start up the ridge.

You go down. Sing Gompa is 1,050 m below Gosainkunda and reachable in four hours, and the trail is good enough to descend in the dark if it comes to that. Helicopters land at Gosainkunda and at Kyanjin and are in Kathmandu inside an hour, which is why we ask to see your insurance.

No. There is no Himalayan Rescue Association post in this region, a small health post at Kyanjin that is staffed on and off, and a district hospital at Dhunche at the very end. Your guide's first aid training, a pulse oximeter and a readiness to turn round are the cover.

Seven hours for about 120 km, and the last third is dirt, dust and hairpins cut into a steep hillside. It is spectacular and it is tiring, and a jeep with six people in it is a very different day from a bus with forty. Nobody finishes this trek and says the walking was the hard part.

Yes. A glacial lake burst in Tibet in July 2025 and the Bhote Koshi took the border bridge and a kilometre of road north of Syabrubesi, and a second flood in August 2026 hit Syabrubesi itself. Repairs and detours are a normal part of this route. We check the road status before every departure and will tell you if we are starting from Dhunche instead.

There is no airstrip in this region. A helicopter charter from Kathmandu to Kyanjin Gompa takes about forty minutes and is available on request, but it lands you at 3,870 m with no acclimatisation behind you, which we will argue with you about before we book it.

Simple, warm enough and better than their reputation. Everything from Langtang village upward was built after 2016, so it is newer than most teahouse accommodation in Nepal. Gosainkunda is the basic one: stone rooms, a single stove, no shower and a cold night.

Surprisingly good in the Langtang valley, patchy on the Gosainkunda ridge and unreliable at the lakes. Buy an Ncell or NTC sim in Kathmandu. Micro-hydro power means charging is cheaper here than in the Everest region, though at Gosainkunda it is solar and rationed.

Not untreated. Boiled water is a dollar or two a litre in every lodge and we would rather you bought that or carried a filter than bought plastic bottles. There is a safe drinking water station at Thulo Syabru. Above Sing Gompa there is nothing but what the lodge boils.

Two: the Langtang National Park entry permit at NPR 3,000, about $22, and the TIMS card at NPR 2,000, about $15. Both are in your trek price and we arrange them in Kathmandu. You do not need the Shivapuri Nagarjun permit that the circuit version requires, because you never reach Sundarijal.

Yes. Since 1 April 2023 every foreign trekker in a Nepali national park must be with a licensed guide booked through a registered agency, and the TIMS card is only issued that way. It is checked at the Dhunche post. Solo trekking here is not a grey area any more.

Around $250 to $350 in rupees for the fortnight covers hot showers, charging, boiled water, snacks, beer and anything you buy. There is an ATM at Dhunche that sometimes works and nothing above it. Bring small notes; a lodge at Gosainkunda cannot change a thousand-rupee note for a cup of tea.