Overview
My brother Howard has been on the Tilicho Trek a couple of times and now he talked me into going with him in May 2026. We fly to Kathmandu in Nepal then take a bus to Pokhara. From there we can take jeeps up to altitude and start walking. The goal is Tilicho Lake at 4920m. This is a trek, not a climb, a lot of walking with places to stay and places to eat. As of this writing before we leave, we do not know if we can get there. There can be too much snow, landslides, scree slopes, old knees, altitude sickness, lions and tigers and bears. Not lugging a laptop so this blog will probably be written when we return in late May.
Nepal is a small country north of India and south of China. Find the Himalayas and you’re there. Nepal has 30 million people, about 75 Nepals can fit into Canada. Cozy, unfortunately poor. Our target lake, Tilicho Lake, is at the centre to the north, where they keep the mountains. The area is Annapurna with several real mountain climbs to 8000m (the fatality rate at Annapurna 1 has dropped to 20%, ouch), which is another league from our trek. League, as in a whole different class, not that 4.8km thing.
“BC” is Tilicho base camp.
We won’t walk that whole route, too far, too much climbing. There are jeeps, motorcycles, horses and mules along the route and we will surely use them, just to support the local economy of course. We will takes rooms and meals along the way.
The Tilicho base camp is not a climbing base camp. It has places to stay and places to eat, colloquially hotels and restaurants. The last long day, if the gods allow, is from base camp to Tilicho Lake and back, only 4-6km but 800m climb. We shall see.
Kathmandu
- Not there yet, or maybe am but can’t update this page. Probably the latter.