Blue Sheep Trail

Beginning in the old Sikkimese capital of Yuksom, the Goecha La trek leads you into one of the Himalaya’s great wildernesses, within the Khangchendzonga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Over twelve days on the mountain you follow the roaring Ratang Chu through moss-draped forest of magnolia, rhododendron and orchid, and climb steeply to Tsokha, a Tibetan settlement with a monastery and a holy lake, where Mt. Pandim fills the sky for the first time. Above the tree line lie the high yak pastures of Dzongri, a “mountain fortress” of stone herders’ sheds beneath Rathong Glacier, where a rest day lets you adjust to the thin air and watch dawn light up Kanchendzonga, Kabru and Pandim. Then you cross the wide valley of Thangshing, trek beside walls of rock and ice to the turquoise waters of Samiti Lake, and rise in the dark to Goecha La (16,200 ft), where the east face of the world’s third-highest mountain glows gold, so close you feel you could touch it. Along the way you may spot red pandas, blue sheep, Himalayan monals and, if you are very lucky, the snow leopard’s tracks, before returning through virgin forest of rhododendron, fir and spruce to Yuksom. Before this journey, a few gentle days in Gangtok, with its monasteries and the great monastery at Rumtek, prepare you for the mountains.