Jomolhari Base Camp Trek: Border, Lakes & the Snow Line
Destination: Laya & the Highland Passes
Duration: 9 days / 8 nights
Difficulty: Strenuous
Best season: Sep 2027 — Nov 2027
Nine days on the classic high-altitude trek to the Jomolhari base camp beneath the 7,314-metre snow mountain, with a camping crew and no pack animals beyond Jangthang.
Highlights
Base camp at 4,900m directly beneath Jomolhari's north face
Gochula La crossing at 4,850m above the clouds
A clear-sky morning on Jichu Drakye, the sacred snow peak
Bhutan's cleanest trekking air and very few other groups
What is included
Licensed trekking guide and full support crew
Camping equipment, mess tent, kitchen crew and cook
All meals on the trek, plus breakfast and dinner at each end
All permits, SDF and the Jomolhari special entry permit
Fifteen-night buffer on the trek so no flights are put at risk
Emergency evacuation contingency held with a helicopter company
Day-by-day itinerary
Day 1 — Paro to Thimphu, and the briefing Two hours east to the capital, and an afternoon that matters more than it looks. This is the most serious trek we run: nine days, altitudes to 4,400 metres, and a fully supported camp moved ahead of you each day. Your guide walks you through the route profile, the two rest days built into the plan,…
Day 2 — Dochula Pass to Jangthang Drive to the Dochula Pass at 3,010 metres and start walking within the hour, dropping through pine forest and climbing the far side to the herding village of Jangthang at 2,900 metres. Five hours on soft trail to acclimatise, with the camp set up ahead of you. This first day is short on purpose: ev…
Day 3 — Jangthang to Laya A steady climb out of Jangthang through the forest to Laya at 3,700 metres, the highest inhabited village in Bhutan. Six hours, gaining 800 metres, on trail that gets steeper and rockier as it goes. Above the treeline the trail crosses open hillside with the Gangkar Puensum massif filling the south…
Day 4 — Chhu Tare and the border road Out of Laya on the old trail to the Chhu Tare valley, following the course of a stream down through forest and then along the wide, flat, gravel-floored valley of the border road. Long, gentle, genuinely beautiful walking — seven hours over 16 kilometres with only 300 metres of ascent. The camp is…
Day 5 — Chhu Tare to Gonphu The trail climbs away from the road into the rhododendron and pine forest of the upper Chhu Tare, and the walking gets harder. Fourteen kilometres with 780 metres of ascent, and the temperature drops the higher you go. Gonphu is a small collection of farmhouses in a clearing at 3,570 metres, and th…
Day 6 — Into Jomolhari The day the trek is named for. Eleven kilometres climbing steadily through forest, out above the treeline at about 3,800 metres, and then into the high Himalaya proper: the Jomolhari massif fills the valley ahead, the 7,314-metre snow mountain the Bhutanese call Jomolhari and everyone else calls Jo…
Day 7 — Jomolhari Base Camp Two hours to the base camp at roughly 3,950 metres, on a high shelf with the mountain face close enough to hear. This is where the camp sits for two nights, and the afternoon is spent on the ridge above it — a walk out along the snowline with the whole range turning slowly through the afternoon lig…
Day 8 — Chorten Lhakhang and out of the valley A morning at the base camp, then out of the Jomolhari valley and back down into the Chhu Tare — long, and the biggest single drop of the trek. Seventeen kilometres, 600 metres of ascent and a great deal of descent, on the whole camp crew behind you rather than porters carrying your load. The camp t…
Day 9 — Laya and departure A final morning walk down to the roadhead at Laya and a flight from Bathpalathang to Paro, or the long drive to Thimphu if you would rather spend a last day in the capital. Either way the trailhead is behind you, and there is a genuine sense on this last morning of having done something with legs.