What to Expect
Sleeping & Food
Unless you’re staying in luxury accommodations, all the lodges are fairly similar. You’ll get a room with either a bed for two, or more commonly two small single beds. Toilets are rarely in the room. (Pro-Tip: There is typically a western toilet in one room and squat toilet in another. Squat toilets are almost always much cleaner.)
Each lodge has a large dining room with seating around the perimeter and a fireplace in the middle. It’s customary for many lodges to circle the fireplace in chairs about an hour before dinner so the guides, porters, and guests can gather to stay warm and chat. It’s also a chance to eat popcorn at some spots.
Meals are served from a menu that is nearly identical lodge to lodge. Breakfast options include eggs, pancakes, Tibetan Bread, and Tsampa (roasted barley hot cereal – which is my go to). Dinner can be pasta, rice & noodle dishes, pizza, and of course Nepali food. The standard meal is dal bhat which is eaten by just about every Nepali for lunch and dinner. It’s a large serving of rice, curried vegetables and a bowl of lentil soup. The advantage of eating dal bhat is that refills are offered. 24-hour dal bhat power.
Meat is not commonly available above Namche.
There are bakeries throughout the entire region which are certainly appreciated but banana bread tends to be one of the better options.
Black tea, instant coffee, and ginger lemon tea are common hot drinks. But, many lodges now offer real Nepali coffee, which can be fantastic. There is even Himalayan Sherpa Coffee, a small coffee roaster in Cheplung, right on the trail, just 30 minutes from Lukla. Be sure to stop in.
Along the trails are small stores and restaurants for day food. Candy bars, cookies, and Pringles are easily found.
Additional food can be ordered at breakfast for takeaway. I often get two boiled eggs and some chapati if I know I’ll be out long without options.
Water is easily found to buy in plastic bottles. But more and more, lodges are offering filtered or treated water. Try to reduce plastic waste and use these services.
Maps & Running Stats
We discovered big discrepancies in our recorded stats versus what we found while creating clean versions of the routes in our mapping apps. To provide the best possible GPX tracks, we created new tracks using snap-to-trail tools or drawing in the route for cross country sections. The resulting stats were consistent in distance, but varied by hundreds, even thousands of meters, for vertical gain. This is something we’ve always seen in the Alps and Sierra, but never to the extent that we found in the Himalaya.
The numbers we’re providing for each run are based on comparing our recordings with what we add up using the route profile.
Consider this when importing the tracks into your own mapping app, you may get different numbers from what we present.
Trail Running & Peaks
For experienced mountain runners, the Khumbu is business as usual. For those who’ve run in the Alps, Sierra, or Rockies, the terrain is not much different. The routes we present are almost entirely on dirt, some talus, and depending on conditions, maybe some snow or ice. These are not technical running routes, in fact, they are very user friendly. Valley trails tend to be wide and smooth courtesy of the yaks and many trekkers – you’ll appreciate the absence of trail obstacles as your eyeballs will likely wander to the peaks towering above. Trails over the passes are typical alpine terrain, sometimes steep and loose, and can be challenging with snow or ice.
Small villages and clusters of lodges are scattered throughout the region. For the majority of the area, there’s no shortage of available lodging or food. Unless you’re doing the 3 Passes Tour, where there are some longer gaps between lodges, you are rarely more than 2 hours from a bed or dal bhat.
The Khumbu Valley can be absolutely packed with trekkers, the vast majority of which are headed to Everest Basecamp (EBC) and then right back down. Do not expect a wilderness experience. Truthfully, depending on when you go, the Khumbu is anything but quiet. The runs we’re sharing are meant to keep you off the beaten path, however the main trail is necessary at times.
An Overall Strategy
After many trips to the Khumbu, I think I have a solid strategy for moving up the valley and positioning myself to maximize time where I want to be. Moving slowly to higher elevation helps my acclimatization. But, moving too slowly increases the odds of getting sick before I’m away from the crowds.
To move strategically to higher elevations, the places I use as basecamps are Namche (3400 meters), Pangboche (3900 meters), and my favorite of them all, Chukhung (4700 meters).
Namche makes for a great two night stay on your way up. There is a lot to do, see, eat, and even shop for in Namche Bazar. It’s the last “town” as you move up the valley. There are also great runs from here that’ll provide you with your first views of Mt. Everest.
From Namche, I continue either up the Khumbu Valley, stopping in Pangboche, or, I leave the Khumbu Valley just above Namche and head into the Gokyo Valley. From the Gokyo Valley, I cross Cho La Pass, 5400m, the second pass of the 3 Passes Tour, and make my way to Chukhung. This option takes several more days but has the advantage of going to 5000+ meters for acclimatization. The disadvantage is that crossing Cho La may take a toll on the body. I recommend this option more for those that have experience at altitude.
Once in Chukhung, I rest before taking on some of the runs and peaks from Khangri Resort.
Chukhung Trail Running Basecamp
Khangri Lodge is a home away from home for me. I’ve stayed there many times, sometimes for weeks at a time. The Sherpa family that runs it has become like my own family. But it isn’t just the familiarity that makes it special, it truly is one of the best lodges anywhere. Lopsang Sherpa runs a tight ship, the lodge is spotless, the food superb, the rooms comfortable, and there is even a cafe within the lodge run by his brother Jangbu. All this surrounds a big courtyard where you can do yoga, eat, nap or read in the sun, all with Ama Dablam towering directly above.
Right out the door is the trail to Chukhung Ri and Kongma La.
It’s paradise.
Bigger Objectives
Another advantage of making Chukhung your basecamp is the options it provides for the run down the valley back to Namche. The obvious way down is to run from Chukhung to Namche in a day on the main Khumbu Valley/EBC Trail.
But the grand exit is to go down via a pass, or passes.
Sitting at the end of the 3 Passes Tour, you can return to Namche by going over one, two, or all three 5000+ meter Passes – in a day or taking multiple days. If you do spend the night in a lodge, whether planned or not, you can always use the lodge’s blankets, allowing you to travel light. (This is when you’ll need to send your bag down to Namche by porter so you can only carry a running pack.)
No matter which you choose, crossing the passes is a big objective for a first trip to the Everest Region.
If you decide to do more than one pass, I highly recommend budgeting an extra day for any surprises in how you feel doing multiple 5000+ meter passes in a push.
3 Passes Tour
The 3 Passes Tour is one way to mostly avoid the traffic of the Everest Basecamp (EBC) Trek. There’s no one official way to do the 3 Passes Tour, but it starts in Namche and crosses three high passes, Renjo La (5400m), Cho La (5400m), Kongma La (5550m) on the way to Chukhung, a small collection of lodges at 4700 meters in a side valley of the Khumbu.
Most people start in Namche and head up the Thame Valley where they cross Renjo La, descend to Gokyo Lake, cross Cho La, descend to Lobuche, then cross the final pass Kongma La, descending to Chukhung – clockwise. From Chukhung, they make their way back down to Namche. Most guided parties will do this tour in 7-10 days.
Some trekkers opt for the reverse direction. I have done it both ways and prefer counterclockwise, especially because climbing Kongma La from Lobuche is much less pleasant than climbing it from Chukhung.
The 3 Passes profile, terrain, views, and available lodges and restaurants make it one of the greatest mountain runs in the galaxy. At 60km and 3000 meters, it’s just the right amount of hard for the inspired mountain runner. But, because it crosses three 5000+ meter passes, it becomes something very different. It becomes a test of body and pacing management, and maybe mostly of avoiding altitude or general sickness.
It also forces the athlete to fully tune into their condition, form, recovery, and acclimatization prior to launching, and to know if it’s at all reasonable, or safe, to make an attempt. Go too early in the process and suffer elevation issues. Go too late and possibly suffer the effects of a body and immune system weakened from too much time at elevation.
Thankfully, 3 Passes has variation for alternate finishes. You can do one, two, or all three passes as your grand finale leaving Chukhung to return to Namche. After each pass there is a different valley funneling into Namche. It’s laid out perfectly for bail outs. We know, we’ve used them.
If you come up short on any of the versions, you always have the option of popping into a lodge and calling it a day. You’ll never be more than a couple of hours from a comfortable dining room and bed. Just don’t wander in too late.
Our route descriptions assume you are starting in Chukhung and well acclimated. See the 1 Pass and 2 Pass Loop variations in the downloadable guide, here.
The route is a monument, not just for the trail quality, but for the views, and the overall experience. Starting in Chukhung at the base of the 8000 meter Lhotse, you’ll start your day staring at Ama Dablam before crossing into the Khumbu Valley where you’ll lay eyes on Pumori, run beneath the wildly steep Cholatse, and then traverse a small glacier while crossing Cho La. The third pass, Renjo La, starts from the azure Gokyo Lake. During a 3 Passes run in 2023, we climbed Renjo La at sunset and in thick clouds. Near the top, I turned around to see how things were looking and was rewarded with a window to a very pink Mount Everest at last light. That cloud window closed seconds later, replaced by blowing snow and the start of a cold descent, racing fog and darkness down to Lungdhen.