Sapa sits at about 1,500 m in the far north of Vietnam, a former French hill station in the province of Lao Cai, a few dozen kilometres from the Chinese border. Above it rises the Hoang Lien Son range, and above everything else rises Fansipan, at 3,143 m the highest mountain in Vietnam and in … Read more
Kangchenjunga is the third-highest mountain on earth at 8,586 m, and for a long time it was thought to be the highest. From the Nepal side it takes three weeks to reach its base. From Sikkim, the small Indian state wedged between Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, the walk to the viewpoint at Goecha La takes … Read more
The Manaslu Circuit is what the Annapurna Circuit was a generation ago: a two-week loop around an 8,000 m peak, from lowland gorges to a 5,106 m pass, with villages rather than roadheads at every stage. It is a restricted area, which keeps numbers down and adds paperwork, and the pass is long and cold. … Read more
Twelve kilograms is the number that governs almost every decision about what to bring on a Himalayan lodge trek. It is roughly half of what a porter should carry, it is close to the checked baggage allowance on the small aircraft that fly into Lukla, and it is the point beyond which a duffel stops … Read more
Taiwan is not the first place most trekkers think of when they picture East Asia’s mountains, yet the island has more than 250 peaks over 3,000 m, packed into a landmass smaller than Switzerland. The highest of them is Yushan, “Jade Mountain”, at 3,952 m. It is the highest summit in Taiwan, higher than Mount … Read more
Most Himalayan treks are planned around the monsoon, which means avoiding it. The Valley of Flowers is the exception. This high glacial valley in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, in northern India, is at its best in late July and August, when the rain that empties every other trail brings up a carpet of alpine … Read more
Langtang is the valley that runs east to west along the Tibetan border directly north of Kathmandu, and it is the only major trek in Nepal that begins within a day’s drive of the capital and needs no flight. In a week you can walk from subtropical forest at 1,460 m to a yak pasture … Read more
Everest Base Camp is the most walked long trek in Nepal, and the standard itinerary from Lukla has settled into a well-tested twelve-day shape. We think it is worth understanding that shape before booking anything, because the days are not arranged for distance. They are arranged for altitude. The walk from Lukla at 2,860 m … Read more
The Markha Valley is where most people meet Ladakh on foot for the first time, and it is hard to imagine a better introduction. Over five or six days the trail follows a green ribbon of barley fields, willows and mud-brick villages through a landscape that is otherwise rock, sky and wind. It ends over … Read more
The Kumano Kodo is not one trail but a web of pilgrimage routes that has threaded the forested Kii Peninsula, south of Osaka and Nara, for more than a thousand years. Of these routes, the Nakahechi is the one most walkers choose. It is the “imperial route”, followed by retired emperors and their courts from … Read more
