The mighty Ngozumpa Glacier

This is day 15 of my 24 day trek through the Khumbu region of Nepal -> View all posts for this trek

It’s possible to cross the Cho La Pass, between Gokyo and Lobuche – located on the main trail to Everest – in one day. However it is a very long day, and it is recommended to cross the pass early in the morning before the ice starts melting and rock falls become more likely. In this case, you should take at least two days to cross the pass, or, if you’re like me and like to take your time and stop way too often to gawk at the scenery and take ten thousand photos, you should instead think about taking three days for the journey from Gokyo to Lobuche or vise versa. I would stay the night tonight in the tiny village of Tagnag, located at the bottom of the pass on the other side of the Ngozumpa Glacier, and then tackle the pass first thing the next morning.

The trail to Tagnag crosses the massive Ngozumpa Glacier itself. This sounds like a crampon journey, however since the glacier is almost completely covered in rock and gravel that it has torn from the mountains, you can walk across it with just hiking boots. That being said, it is still a glacier and conditions can be unstable and treacherous.

I began the day by hiking up the glacial moraine behind the village of Gokyo. I stopped at the top of the moraine and looked back at the village and the beautiful lake, with the mountains reflected on its surface. I said my farewells to this stunningly beautiful place and began carefully making my way down the unstable inner side of the moraine, the massive Ngozumpa Glacier spreading out before me.

This side of the moraine is incredibly unstable, just rock and scree that is ever changing as the glacier moves slowly along. Stones tumbled down it even as I walked and I was in a hurry just to get off of it and onto the “safety” of the glacier. All it would take is for one decent sized rock to dislodge and come tumbling down toward me and it would all be over.

The terrain of the glacier was strange, like walking through a giant gravel pit, and at times I felt like I was walking on the surface of the moon. Hills of grey rock and gravel stretched out all around me, carved up and crushed by the glacier. At times I walked on grey dust so fine that it was like talc, or “moon dust”. And yet beneath all of this is millions of tonnes of ice.

About halfway across the glacier I came to a spot where the glacier had cracked open to unveil a sheer wall of ice with frozen lakes beneath it. I could now see just how thin the layer of gravel was that I was walking on. The ice creaked and groaned, letting me know that it was indeed alive and moving.

The walk across the glacier was quite treacherous, climbing up and down scree slopes and stumbling over rocks where one wrong step could result in a strained or broken ankle, or even worse. I followed a faint trail but everything here is temporary and at times I was making my own way across, with my only marker being the moraine on the other side, when I could see it.

When I reached the moraine I came across another frozen lake, in which this time I could get right up to its edge. Every time a rock fell down onto its surface it made a most fascinating echo sound. When several rocks fell at the same time, it sounded almost like whales communicating under water. I followed right along above the lake and then made a tough, exhausting scramble up the scree slope of the moraine and back into the world of solid ground which is in one place long enough for grass to grow.

A herd of yaks grazed along the thin stretch of flat land between the glacial moraine and the sheer wall of mountains. I wandered past them as I completed the morning’s hike and made my way to Tagnag. I arrived around 11am, three hours after leaving Gokyo, so I had the rest of the day to put my feet up and relax. I was going to need it for tomorrow’s traverse of the Cho La Pass.