Trip Reports

Bhutan - Chomolhari Trek 2019

Thimphu festival, Bhutan
Trip Report

Written by Leader Ed Chard, October 2019

I’ve been Leading expeditions and treks for some time, so I’ve come to expect the unexpected; nothing, however, prepared me for the experiences that I encountered on my recent trip to Bhutan. Just incredible.

It was a small international group that met in Delhi in early October full of enthusiasm and excitement about travelling to the Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan. I had been there twice before; but all to briefly. This time we had our eyes on one of the finest short treks in the Himalayas, the Chomolhari high passes trek.

Flying into Paro airport is an experience in itself, the expert pilot managed to take an excellent weaving route through the Bhutanese foothills to slot us into the valley and almost do a ‘handbrake turn’ to finish. Of the airport buildings I’ve previously seen, Paro Airport must be one of the most ornate. Festooned with Buddhist iconography and beautifully painted with all airline officials wearing National Dress.

The trek was planned around the festival season in Bhutan so the first day was spent at the Thimpu Tshechu (Thimpu National Festival) where around 2000 locals come to see a mix of traditional mask dances, music and religious processions. It was an incredible mix of colour and noise with the people being very welcoming to western tourists.

Our first day of trekking was to gain 400m of altitude and trek to the world-famous Tiger’s Nest Monastery (Tak Sang Gompa). The story goes that a famous Guru rode a flying tiger to the hillside and when the tiger got tired, he rested on a series of ledges where the Gompa now sits.

We started the trek proper the following day after meeting our trek team and horses. The route initially follows and river through lush Blue Pine, Rhododendron and Juniper forest before bursting out into Himalayan Tundra some hours later. Campsites are well laid out in Bhutan often with toilet blocks and electricity, so we settled in for our first comfortable night under nylon.

The trip was designed to coincide with the Chomolhari Mountain Festival, held in Dangojang every year. As we trekked through the village the following day, we saw small groups of dancers and musicians making final preparations for the festival. Various buildings were being given a lick of paint and prayer flags were being strung from most trees around the valley. We camped just out of the village in readiness for a front row view the following day.

As we arrived for the festival there were welcome speeches going on from village elders and local government ministers. Soon massive symbols and drums were beating out the time for mask dancers and village clowns to perform. All the local villages had their own particular dance or performance interspersed with the village clowns doing a turn. Cultural pieces seemed as important as horse racing, tug of war (tourists included) best turned out Yak and musical chairs. The day was a real blast of colour, noise, spirituality and belly laughs!

At some point in a trekking expedition you need to do some trekking so after a short day of acclimatising we started our journey over the high passes toward Tibet. The morning started cold and shady as we ascended some steep tracks to a plateau. Apart from our horses, some way behind us, we were the only people around; we stopped after an hour or so to change layers etc. Looking up the hill side my eye was caught by a fast-moving Marmot, a usually slow-moving lump of fur. Following it at some speed was, I thought, another Marmot – I was wrong. As the chasing beast emerged from behind a rock, I could see the unmistakable markings and body length of a Snow Leopard. An amazing sighting and very rare. It’s fair to say I was quite excited, we all looked up the hill some 150m away as the Leopard continued its short chase, but the Marmot got away. Whether our noisy excitement or the Leopards annoyance at losing its breakfast made it disappear, we’ll never know but ‘Ghost of the Mountains’ is a fitting description for an animal that vanished before our eyes!

We continued our journey over the first high pass and down a spectacular valley surrounded by snow-capped and glaciated mountains. Sitting in the mess tent later that evening, I attempted to capture the Leopard sighting in pencil, it’s clear I should stick to Guiding was the general theme of the feedback!

The last and highest pass took us back around into a very remote valley. Toward the top we were greeted by a large heard of Tar (Blue Sheep) gently making their way across the hillside. As the main prey of the Snow Leopard, we stood for a while just in case our friend from the previous day was doing the same trek as us!

The pass summit was cold and windy, a rocky but stable path leads to the top. At 4950m it’s not the highest pass on the planet but it must be one of the most spectacular. 7000m tops dominate with sweeping valley’s to blue pine forest below. Wonderful.

After another 2 long days of trekking we were back in civilization. Hotel beds, pizza and beer sealed the trip up in Thimpu.

Bhutan has a ‘Gross National Happiness’ scale; it’s fair to say – we were all in the top range!

Flying out of Paro the following day back to Delhi, I could help looking at my Leopard sketch and smiling. What an amazing trip.


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