Khangchendzonga National Park
Eight days on foot from Yuksom to View Point 1, about 4,600 m (15,090 ft), with a guide, cook and porters who work for your party alone, and Kanchenjunga at first light at the end.
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Why View Point 1
Goecha La itself, at 4,940 m (16,210 ft), has been closed to trekkers since 2017 to protect snow leopard habitat, after camera traps recorded the animals, and because the moraine beyond is unstable. View Point 1 faces Kanchenjunga's south-east face across a glacier basin.
Photo: Sounak Mukherjee / Unsplash
Seven nights under canvas
You camp at the park's own sites: Sachen, Tshoka, Dzongri, Lamuney and Kokchurung. Two share a three-person tent on insulated mattresses, in 4-season bags with liners. Meals come to a table in a dining tent, and every camp has a toilet tent.
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Days 3 and 4
The first day crosses three suspension bridges into the Rathong valley to Sachen, about 2,200 m (7,220 ft). The second climbs through oak and rhododendron to Tshoka, about 2,960 m (9,710 ft), where Pandim appears over a monastery pond.
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Day 5
Tshoka to Dzongri is about 9 km and roughly 1,040 m (3,410 ft) of climbing: split-log steps through rhododendron and silver fir to Phedang, then open, windy ground to a meadow at about 4,000 m (13,120 ft). Walk at a pace that still lets you talk.
Photo: Labun Hang Limboo / Unsplash
Two nights at Dzongri
A second night at Dzongri lets your body catch up before you go higher. At dawn you climb to Dzongri Top, about 4,170 m (13,680 ft), where Kanchenjunga, Kabru, Rathong, Koktang and Pandim light one summit at a time. Oxygen readings are taken morning and evening.
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Day 8, 03:00
From Lamuney, the last camp at about 4,150 m (13,620 ft), you leave at 03:00 and pass Samiti Lake unseen in the dark. In late October sunrise comes close to 05:45, and Kanchenjunga's summit catches it first. You stay 30 to 45 minutes; cold and height both count.
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Who it suits
You should walk 12 km with 800 m (2,620 ft) of climbing comfortably and have slept above 3,500 m before. Foreign nationals, US passport holders included, must trek as a party of at least two. Go mid October to late November, or March to mid May.
Photo: Rutva Andharia / Unsplash
Ten nights
Ten nights give one dawn at View Point 1; an eleventh night at Lamuney or Thansing gives a second. For two Indian nationals the trek is priced from ₹1,90,000 per person; foreign nationals pay higher park fees, about ₹5,000 per person.
Photo: Unsplash