Khangchendzonga National Park

Khangchendzonga National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Khangchendzonga National Park occupies the whole north-western quarter of the small Indian state of Sikkim, in the eastern Himalaya, between Nepal and Tibet, and takes its name from the third highest mountain in the world, which stands on its western border. No roads enter it, and it is seen by trekking, which in Sikkim is subject to rules of its own. All foreign visitors need a permit for Sikkim itself, obtained easily and free at the border posts or in advance; to trek in the park they need in addition a trekking permit, which is issued only to groups of at least two foreigners travelling with a registered Sikkimese agency and a guide, so that everything is arranged through an operator in Gangtok, the state capital, or in the western hill towns. Sikkim is reached from Bagdogra airport or the railway junction of New Jalpaiguri, in the plains of West Bengal, from which the village of Yuksom, the trailhead, is about 150 kilometres and six hours by winding mountain road.

The standard route is the Goecha La trek, eight to ten days there and back from Yuksom, carried by yaks or their crossbreeds: it climbs steeply through dense forest to the Tibetan refugee hamlet of Tshoka, continues through rhododendron forest to the meadows of Dzongri, at about 4,000 metres, where a rest day allows a dawn climb to a viewpoint ringed by peaks, descends to the valley of the Prek river and follows it up past the camps of Thansing and Lamuney and the sacred Samiti lake to a viewpoint at about 4,600 metres facing the immense south-east face of the mountain, beyond which the route is now closed. A shorter version, to Dzongri and back, takes five days. The Green Lake trek, to the foot of the Zemu glacier in the restricted north, requires special permission. Those who cannot trek see the range from Pelling and from Gangtok.

Visiting Khangchendzonga National Park: what you will see

The park was established in 1977 and enlarged in 1997 to 1,784 square kilometres, a quarter of the area of Sikkim, and in 2016 it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site for both nature and culture, the first such mixed site in India. Within a horizontal distance of some forty kilometres it rises from subtropical forest at about 1,200 metres to 8,586 at the summit of Khangchendzonga, one of the greatest vertical ranges of any protected area on earth, and contains twenty peaks over six thousand metres, eighteen glaciers, among them the Zemu, twenty-six kilometres long, and more than seventy glacial lakes. The name means the five treasuries of the great snow, after the mountain's five summits, in which, according to Sikkimese belief, are stored salt, gold and turquoise, holy books, weapons, and grain and medicine. The mountain is not merely admired but worshipped: it is the seat of Dzonga, the guardian deity of Sikkim, a red-faced warrior riding a snow lion, who is honoured each year in the masked dances of the festival of Pang Lhabsol, and the whole region is, for Tibetan Buddhists, a beyul, one of the hidden lands blessed in the eighth century by Guru Padmasambhava as refuges for the faithful in times of trouble, which the lama Lhatsun Chenpo is believed to have opened in the seventeenth century.

For the Lepchas, the original inhabitants, the snows of the mountain are the place where the first man and woman were created and where the souls of the dead return. At Yuksom, in 1642, three lamas crowned the first king of Sikkim, on a stone throne that still stands under a great pine, and the lakes, caves, rocks and hot springs of the park form a sacred geography known in detail to the local people. When the British climbers Joe Brown and George Band made the first ascent in 1955, from the Nepalese side, they stopped a few feet short of the top, in fulfilment of a promise given to the ruler of Sikkim that the summit would not be trodden, and since 2001 the state has forbidden all attempts on the mountain from its side. The forests pass from oak, chestnut, magnolia and giant bamboo, through fir, hemlock, juniper and nearly forty kinds of rhododendron, to alpine meadows rich in primulas, poppies and medicinal herbs. The red panda, the state animal, the snow leopard, the clouded leopard, the Himalayan black bear, the musk deer, the blue sheep, the Himalayan tahr, the serow and the Tibetan wolf inhabit the park, and its birds, some 550 species, include the blood pheasant, the state bird, the satyr tragopan, the monal, the lammergeier and many sunbirds and laughingthrushes.

Khangchendzonga National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

There are two seasons for trekking. Spring, from mid-March to May, is the time of the rhododendrons, which flower in succession up the mountainside, turning the forest between Tshoka and Dzongri red, pink, white and yellow in late April and May, with mild temperatures but frequent haze and afternoon cloud. Autumn, from October to early December, after the monsoon, brings the clearest air and the best views of the peaks, with hard frosts at the high camps, down to minus ten degrees or lower by November.

The monsoon, from June to September, is extremely heavy in Sikkim, with leeches, landslides that close the roads, sometimes for days, and cloud on the mountains, and in October 2023 the bursting of a glacial lake in the north of the state caused a devastating flood; from late December to February snow blocks the upper part of the route. Acclimatise carefully, since the trek gains height fast, and bring a warm sleeping bag, waterproofs and sun protection. Allow ten to twelve days from Bagdogra. Pemayangtse monastery and the ruins of Rabdentse are near Pelling, and Darjeeling is four hours from Yuksom.