This ten year old has the Himalaya bug. She also has the determination of mountain goat. The Larke Pass is the highest point of the 165km Manaslu Circuit trek and it’s a big day for an adult, let alone a kid. Up at 3:15am, out at 4:30am, climb from 4,460 meters up to over 5,100 meters, then a huge steep descent way down to 3,700 meters about 14 hours later. She did all that in non-stop rain and snow, after throwing up a dodgy hot chocolate. And by the end, she was bouncing down the trail bursting with enthusiasm for future Himalayan escapades.
We came to Nepal almost on a whim. After a great trip in Japan in 2024, we were all set to return and hike the Kumano Kodo. A sudden change of mind saw me booking flights to Kathmandu – our first visit to Nepal (but our third to the Himalayas).
A few weeks later, 11 days and well over 100 kms into the Manaslu Circuit Trek, I was crouched in the snow on that huge descent. A hardy ponyman was driving some equally hardy Nepali ponies up the steep mountain we were coming down – and in the snow.
But first things first.
Breakfast is at 4am. The tiny place is called Dharmashala – it’s not even a hamlet, let alone a village, because no-one lives here outside of trekking season. High up at 4,460 meters, this place is nothing but some basic accommodation and a long, low-ceiling dining hall. We couldn’t face food at that hour so – fatefully, as it would turn out – we each had a hot chocolate.
The same weather pattern that wreaked havoc on Chinese trekkers near Mt Everest in the first week of October 2025 must have hit us, though we were hundreds of kilometers away. It had rained a lot the previous five days, it had rained hard all night, and it was still raining at 4:30am when we headed up the path in the dark.
Before dawn, it started snowing. Thick wet flakes built up on our packs and our hoods. Spirits were high, though. As long as we took it one step at a time and kept a manageable pace, I reasoned, we’d reach the pass soon enough. We had carefully acclimatized over the preceding days, building in extra time compared to some other trekkers so we didn’t gain too much elevation too quickly.
But kiddo was suffering a bit. She complained of an upset stomach, which was a special concern because nausea can be a symptom of altitude sickness. Then, suddenly, she stopped in her tracks and, blurgh! Out came the morning’s hot chocolate – a neat brown puddle sizzling in the fresh snow.
We carefully discussed how she felt. Headache? No. Dizzy? No. Short of breath? No. For the moment, we agreed it must really have just been a pretty terrible hot chocolate.
On we went, step by step, slowly but surely. The light grew, the snow kept snowing, and we hit a gentle rhythm. We passed 4,700 meters; we passed 4,800 meters; we passed 4,900 meters.
I checked in with kiddo almost every ten minutes, ticking off the list of possible altitude sickness symptoms. Altitude sickness is no joke and there was a woman behind us, we later learned, who needed oxygen brought up to her. But for kiddo there was still no headache, and still no dizziness. She had indicated feeling tired earlier, but we’d agreed to put that down to being dragged out of a warm bed at 3:15 in the cold, wet morning. Now, she felt stronger. We have fostered a close bond of trust with our kid and I believed her self-analysis – she didn’t have altitude sickness. “What if I do, Dad?”, she asked. “I’ll carry you down myself, I promise”.
All this while there was little to see in the foggy conditions. I was aware of big mountains to either side – there are 6,000ers like Larkya Peak here – but they were invisible. Every now and then the sky would clear just enough to see their lower slopes. It was gloomy, and very quiet. All that soft, fresh snow absorbed every sound.
We came across a pony man – what he was doing there wasn’t clear to me – and this reminded us that some people had hired a pony to get them over the pass. That suggestion was batted down with emphatic determination: “I am NOT getting a donkey over the pass”! From then onwards, although we kept to our conservative pace, and I kept a careful eye on her, kiddo felt stronger and stronger. She said with increasing frequency and confidence that she felt like she could do it.
Most of the people who had set off with us that morning were by now far ahead. We weren’t quite the tail end of the line, but as we approached the pass plateau we had the area to ourselves with just a few lonely porters lugging unfeasibly large loads. Soft curves of freshly fallen snow hid boulders, little streams trickled quietly under the frozen surface of ponds and a small lake, and once or twice a tiny bird caught the corner of the eye. Beyond a few hundred meters in any direction, the rest of the world may not have existed.
I’d been down about the dreadful weather we’d had, but here and now I suddenly appreciated the true beauty of the mountains. For those few hours up there in the white silence, a landscape that hasn’t changed in perhaps a million years continued to exist, unchanged and still and almost silent, just as it might for another million.
We crossed the magical 5,000 meter elevation and I expected the pass to be around the next snow-covered boulder. But it seemed to take forever to gain that last hundred meters of elevation and reach the pass – even when we could finally see it, it was still a good half hour off.
Finally, we reached Larke Pass at 5,106 meters above sea level. There were a few people hanging around taking their “summit photos”, and we took ours too. Kiddo had bought a little string of prayer flags for this moment, and it was lovely to watch her and her mum tie them to the many other prayer flags flapping in the breeze. She – and we – had looked forward to this moment and while the weather was not what we’d envisaged, she had certainly shown incredible grit and determination to reach this point. We were thrilled and proud of her in that moment.
But Lila, our guide, was worried about the time. The reason everyone leaves so early for the pass is because the wind is notoriously powerful from mid-morning. No-one wants to be up there when it blows hard.
With our various stoppages along the way, and our conservative pace, we were a bit behind schedule. I wasn’t completely convinced of the need to race off, having only just arrived, but then with a “CRACK” and a concerning rumble we heard an avalanche not far away. Within ten minutes, there was another. Lila smiled and said “don’t worry, that avalanche is far away”. I thought, “you had me at ‘avalanche'”. It sounded close enough to us so we took a last snap or two, and headed out.
Our previous high altitude pass had been the Kongmaru La pass near Kang Yatse in Ladakh, India. That day, we left the pass straight into a very steep descent. Here, it turned out we actually gained altitude before finally heading down. I kept looking at my altimeter, slightly confused. I’d read and been told about the challenging steep climb down from here – but where was it?
The first hints of a building stiff breeze were teasing our faces as we eventually crested the end of the plateau and saw for the first time the downward climb. I was relieved, honestly, because it seemed a lot less daunting than everyone made out and not as steep or exposed as the pass in India. Still, it was covered in snow and the path had been mashed into a pretty icy mess by the time we got there.
For a short moment there were some tantalising views out to the west towards the Annapurna range. The cloud rolled in moments later, and then there was not a lot else to do except get down off the mountain.
We slipped, slid, scooted, and scurried our way down. That hardy pony man with his hardy pony train came up past us and I crouched alongside in snowdrift to absorb the scene. Other than the cellphone that was definitely in that pony man’s pocket, probably not a lot had changed here in a few centuries.
As we really started to lose height, the snow gave way to bare ground and the falling snow turned to heavy rain. By now we’d all given up caring that the entire day had been one form of precipitation or another – amazingly our raincoats and rain pants were doing their jobs admirably well. Everyone was warm, and everyone was dry. The path was awash with water – the rain, the melting snow, the water that’s just flowing there all the time anyway. Thunder rolled out of the sky above, echoing off the grey walls of the mountain we were now well below.
After a very long effort in the thunderstorm we finally reached the “High Altitude Tea Shop” about 90 minutes from our final destination at Bimthang. Here we stopped for a very late lunch – it was around three in the afternoon as we stripped off our sopping wet gear and brushed the remnant snowdrifts off the top of our sodden packs.
The people who ran this spotlessly clean place were welcoming and accommodating – within ten minutes we had a freshly-lit wood oven to warm ourselves against and some hot food to replenish our energy. We gave serious thought to staying the night there, but in the end decided the stretch to Bimthang was worth it.
Those last wet 90 minutes were the longest wet 90 minutes I’ve ever endured on a hike. I felt like I could barely walk another step as we dragged ourselves down the last kilometer into the village.
Kiddo, on the other hand, was positively bouncing along. She had really proven to herself (because we already knew it) that when she put her mind to something, even something really hard, there was no stopping her.
A few details of the hike:
Distance: 20 km. Elevation gain: 804 meters. Starting elevation: 4,400 meters. Highest elevation: 5,148 meters. End elevation: 3,700 meters.
Guide time is 8-10 hours. We took 14 hours, which included a very long lunch. Our moving time was a little over 6 hours.
