67 Tum-Luk Trek

Background 

Last few years have been going to US (to visit family) in the months of April-May to avoid Mumbai's pre-monsoon heat and humidity. But this year (2018) the US visit got postponed and so I thought of doing a middle-hills trek, similar to 'Jiri-Lukla' route that I liked so much and have done twice before.

Internet research and a look at LP's "Trekking in the Nepal Himalayas" Guide revealed a Lukla-Tumlingtar trek as an interesting and easy cultural trek as a great exit option for Hikers returning from EBC-Kalapathar. 

It was a touted as a 9-day walk from Lukla to Tumlingtar. Besides, I read that HW Tilman (the famous British Climber, who btw had led the first ascent of Nanda Devi, in India) had used this as an "approach" route i.e. from Hile to Lukla during his exploration trek (1950) to Khumbu Valley to look for a climbing route to Everest Summit from the South Col in Nepal.

I knew month of May will mean cloudy skies and thunderstorms and rain ... and being middle hills no great snow peak views either. Still it would be a route hardly used by trekkers and I would have the trails to myself mostly. Plus the Tea-houses were pretty Basic in this route; so perhaps the food would be just Dal-Bhat; but costs would be lower than in the 'luxury' tea-houses of the EBC-Kalapathar route. All in all, a perfect trek for me except the lack of snow peak views! So quickly, I decided to go and email-ed Suman Neupane, my Thamel-Kathmandu based Trek Agent.

The trek in this direction turned out to be lot tougher than I expected as we had to ascend to 4 passes at levels above 3000M starting from low River levels. On the whole I would say it was a great trek and I hardly saw any other trekker anywhere except a Brazilian couple at Najingdingma.

And Day-wise Trek Diary in subpages in the Menus in Left Margin