Parachermo Peak and Ramdungo at Rolwaling

The trek starts with a 2500 foot climb through Hindu villages until we are high on the slope of a ridge over looking one of the many river valleys in Nepal that are equal in depth to the of the Grand Canyon. Our second day’s trek will see us reach our first Buddhist villages and Gombas/ Monastery. On this day we will also see the forests change from oak to rhododendrons are Nepal’s Nationals Flower and are not bushes but trees up to 60 feet high and are covered in red, pink and occasionally white flowers in spring days. These rhododendron forests are to be found at elevations between 6500 and 1,2000 feet.

For many of you the first three days of the trek will be the hardest of the trek as we steadily climb to Tinsang La Pass (10,900 feet) which we get our first view of the Himalayas which, although still somewhat distant, are breathtaking. The tower of Chobo Bemare in Tibet is visible along with the peaks of the Rolwaling. We will descend from the pass through alpine meadows ringed with the rhododendrons in a riot of red and white blossoms until we come to Bigu Gomba at 8,200 feet elevation.

Set among juniper trees, Bigu is one of the most fascinating Buddhist nunneries in Nepal. Built in 1933 it houses about 35 nuns, most of them Sherpas. The walls inside the gomba are lined with interlacing statues of Avalokiteswara, each with eleven heads and 1000 arms, hands and eyes.

Our next two days will see us pass many small villages and hike up and then down seldom used trials through rhododendron and magnolia forests. We are sure to see groups f monkeys in the forest as we make our way over several ridges between 7000 and 9000 feet and finally come to the valley of the mighty Bhote Kosi river. We must drop all the way down to the village of Congar (4100 feet) on the Bhote Kosi, and our camp on one of its tributaries will give us our first of many opportunities for swimming on this trek. Heading up the Bhote Kosi the valley becomes V-shaped and very rugged as you pass a beautiful waterfall on the opposite bank. You are now on one of the historic trade routes to Tibet.

To reach the Rolwaling Valley we leave the Tibet trade route and cross the Bhote Kosi on an exciting suspension bridge before we begin a zigzag climb up to the village of Simagaon (6400 feet) populated by Sherpas and Tamangs . Simagaon, besides having many Buddhist chortens and mani stones, also has a small gomba. We climb to the ridge summit above the village and get our first close-up view of Gauri Shankar (23,442 feet), the Rolwaling’s most famous peak, as it looms above the valley of the Rolwaling Khola.

Gauri Shankar has deep religious significance for both Hindus and Buddhist . Jumbled rock escarpments sweep upwards into knife-edged and corniced ice ridges which finally merge at Gauri , the south summit. So prominent is Gauri Shankar from the Ganges Plain that legends long claimed it to be the highest mountain in the world. The Rolwaling Sherpas call it Jomo Tseringma and throughout Buddhist Lamaism, to as far away as Sikkim, Tseringma is considered the most holy mountain of the Sherpas.