CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 248 km, Pokhara to the finish - roughly 5 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: Jomsom, Kagbeni and Ghami. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 5,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 11 km this is Upper Mustang Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Pokhara is the point where Nepal's mountain drama starts to feel close. The city lies at about eight hundred metres, beside the long blue Phewa Lake, and from the lakeside you can see the Annapurna range lined up along the northern horizon, including the sharp summit of Machapuchare, the Fishtail, which has never been climbed because it is held sacred. On a clear morning the effect is almost unfair; on a hazy afternoon the peaks vanish altogether.
Read the complete Near Pokhara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pokhara is where the day begins. Next is Jomsom.
Jomsom is the main town of the Mustang district, strung along the bank of the Kali Gandaki river at about 2,700 metres, in what is often called the deepest valley in the world, because the river runs between Dhaulagiri and the Annapurna massif, both above eight thousand metres. The scale is hard to take in. Snow peaks hang on either side of the valley, the river bed is a wide plain of grey gravel braided with channels, and the town sits in the middle of it, a place of whitewashed buildings, apple orchards, and a small airport whose planes fly in only in the morning before the wind rises.
Read the complete Jomsom write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jomsom comes up about 151 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kagbeni.
Kagbeni stands at 2,800 metres where the Jhong Khola stream joins the Kali Gandaki, and it is the last village before Upper Mustang, the old Tibetan-style kingdom of Lo, which was closed to foreigners until 1992 and still requires a special, costly permit. The village is a cluster of mud-brick houses, painted in earth reds and whites, huddled together with narrow lanes, covered passages and flat roofs stacked with firewood. Above it stands a red-walled monastery, Kag Chode, with its prayer wheels and low doorways, and the fields around are terraced and irrigated with water brought from the river by channels, a green patch in a landscape of grey and ochre.
Read the complete Kagbeni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 162 km into the recorded legs you reach Kagbeni. Next is Ghami.
Ghami is a village in Upper Mustang at about 3,500 metres, set among red and ochre cliffs on a high, windy plateau, and it is known for having one of the longest mani walls in Nepal. The wall runs for hundreds of metres along the edge of the village, a long ridge of stones carved with prayers in Tibetan script, and travellers pass it on the left, as is the custom, spinning the prayer wheels set into its length. The effect is striking: a wall of stone and colour, stretching across a bare landscape under a deep blue sky, built over centuries by people who believed each stone carried a blessing.
Read the complete Ghami write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ghami, late in the day. Next is Lo Manthang.
Lo Manthang is a walled city on a high, windy plateau in the north of Nepal, close to the Tibetan border, and it was the capital of the old kingdom of Lo, which survived as a semi-independent state until 2008. The city lies at about 3,800 metres on the dry side of the Himalaya, in the rain shadow of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges, and the landscape is a desert of eroded cliffs, red, ochre and grey, cut by the deep gorge of the Kali Gandaki river. The area was closed to outsiders until 1992, and permits are still required and costly. The people are of Tibetan origin, and the culture, language and religion are Tibetan Buddhist.
Read the complete Lo Manthang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Lo Manthang. That is the ride.
Pokhara → Jomsom is 151 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Jomsom → Kagbeni is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kagbeni → Ghami is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ghami → Lo Manthang is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.