Pikey Peak Trek

- from Shivalaya to Phaplu -

Nepal - Trekking

Pikey Peak trek is really different. Here you don’t pass near spectacular mountains, we don’t have glaciers that hang down next to us, here the important thing is the human and cultural environment. The Pikey Peak area represents in a way the paradigm of Nepal, medium mountains, forest, crops, farms and small villages, in the middle of an area with big influence of Tibetan Buddhism.

11 days / 10 nights full trip in Nepal (minimum recommended)

8 days’ trek (6 hiking days plus 2 transfer days)

Medium. With no technical difficulties

Highest altitude 4065m

Highest altitude overnight 3640m

Local mountain guide English speaking

Meals and overnight in lodges and homestay during the trek

Accommodation in hotel in Kathmandu

Transfers in private vehicle

$1.015*

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The Pikey Peak trek is a quite different trek from the classic ones on the most common routes in the Annapurna and High Khumbu (Everest) areas. This trek in the lower Solukhumbu offers the opportunity to travel through valleys and mountains dominated by Chetri and Sherpa populations, with groups of Gurung and Rai communities. The route has an important trace of Tibetan Buddhism, among which the Thupten Chholing monastery stands out, an extremely important central point for a large group of Buddhist monks and nuns and refugees from Tibet.

And of course, let’s not forget the short climb to Pikey Peak, which has one of the most complete panoramic views of the Himalayas which, with the Everest pyramid just to the north, on clear days stretches from Dhaulagiri in the west to Kanchenjunga in the east.

The trek starts in Jiri, the central town of the lower Solukhumbu, and Shivalaya, to finish in Phaplu from where we will take a flight back to Kathmandu, thus avoiding having to make the return trip by the same route, and shortening it a little. The itinerary we present here is a renewed route compared to the more classic one, which lasts three more days, starting and ending in Jiri, which means two long days driving instead of only one.

The route does not offer the comfortable lodges of its northern neighbours. Here the accommodations are more basic, with little possibility of plugging in our many devices and with a more restricted meal offer. But this same reason gives it authenticity, sleeping even a couple of nights in a homestay.

We will travel through a landscape that is the most common in the medium-altitude mountainous areas that dominate the country and we will be closer to its people in some valleys where the economy provided by the treks is not the only one that counts. Here the villages are real, not groups of lodges, and locals work hard in their subsistence economy in small farms.

Thus, the Pikey Peak trek becomes one of the treks that offers a much richer and more cultural approach in all Nepal and surprises all the travellers who have undertaken it.