Autumn gets the postcards, but spring gets the rhododendrons and winter gets the empty trails. Here is how to choose your season.
Nepal has two headline trekking seasons and two quietly excellent ones. Most visitors arrive in October and November, when post-monsoon air gives the sharpest mountain views of the year and the trails hum with company.
Spring, from March to May, is our own favourite. The rhododendron forests below 3,500 m turn scarlet, expedition teams fill Base Camp with atmosphere, and the light softens into something photographers chase for years.
Winter trekking is genuinely underrated at lower altitudes. Ghandruk, Poon Hill and the Kathmandu rim stay walkable, the skies are glass-clear, and you will often have a viewpoint entirely to yourself.
Monsoon, June to August, is the season for Mustang and Dolpo — rain-shadow regions where the clouds break against the Annapurnas and never arrive.
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About the author
Pemba Sherpa
Head of Mountain Operations at Nepal Heaven. Based in Kathmandu, on the trail roughly half the year.
