Kanchenjunga Base Camp Trek – 21 Days

Kanchenjunga (8,586m) is the third-highest mountain in the world and the most remote of the eight-thousanders that can be reached on foot in Nepal. It sits in the far eastern corner of the country on the Sikkim border, three days of travel from Kathmandu before the walking even starts, and it receives a tiny fraction of the trekkers who go to Everest or Annapurna. This twenty-one day itinerary visits both base camps. The northern one, Pangpema at 5,143m, sits on the Kanchenjunga glacier directly beneath the mountain's enormous north face — a wall of ice and rock rising three and a half kilometres above the moraine. The southern one, Oktang at around 4,700m, looks up at the Yalung glacier and the Kanchenjunga south face, with Jannu (Kumbhakarna) visible en route. The two are linked by the Sele La ridge, a series of four small passes crossed in a single long day. The approach is one of the most biologically diverse in Nepal. You start in subtropical terraced farmland at around 1,200m among Limbu and Rai villages, climb through some of the country's densest rhododendron and cardamom forest, and finish on high glacial moraine. The Kanchenjunga Conservation Area is managed by local communities and holds red panda, snow leopard and Himalayan black bear. Lodges are basic and sparse — this is not the Khumbu. On some sections we carry camping support. Trekker numbers are low enough that you may go days without meeting another group. Kanchenjunga is a restricted area requiring a permit, a licensed guide and a minimum of two trekkers.