Why 14 days is the classic Manaslu Circuit duration
Fourteen days is not a marketing number. It is what the mountain requires once you subtract the two days you spend getting to and from the trailhead and add back the one day the trek genuinely cannot do without, the acclimatisation day at Samagaun.
Work it through. The walk from Machha Khola to Dharapani is nine days at a sensible pace. Add the Samagaun rest day and you are at ten walking days. Add a day at each end to get from Kathmandu to the Budhi Gandaki and from Dharapani back to Kathmandu, and a buffer day for the weather, because a landslide on the Dharapani road is a normal event rather than a disaster, and you land on fourteen. Anything shorter has to come out of one of those four things, and three of them are load-bearing.
The other reason to prefer fourteen is the shape of the ascent. On this itinerary you sleep at 930 m on night one and 4,460 m on night nine, and above 3,000 m you gain an average of about 370 m of sleeping altitude a night with a zero-gain day in the middle. That is comfortably inside the standard acclimatisation guidance, and it is why the great majority of our trekkers cross Larkya La feeling tired rather than ill.
| Itinerary | 14-day Manaslu Circuit (classic) |
|---|---|
| Duration | 14 days Kathmandu to Kathmandu · 10 walking days |
| Highest point | Larkya La, 5,106 m (16,752 ft), day 10 |
| Highest night | Dharamsala / Larkya Phedi, 4,460 m |
| Walking distance | ~155 km on foot, about 16 km a day |
| Acclimatisation days | One, at Samagaun (3,530 m), not optional |
| Buffer days | One, in Kathmandu at the end |
| Difficulty | Challenging, long days, remote, a high pass, no technical ground |
| Best season | Mid-September to late November & March to May |
| Accommodation | Teahouse / lodge, twin-share, basic at Dharamsala |
| Permits | Restricted Area Permit, MCAP and ACAP, all three included |
| Group size | 2 minimum, a legal requirement in the restricted area |
| From | £1,295 per person, two sharing |
Fourteen days is the shortest version we run. Shorter itineraries exist, and the days they save come out of the Kathmandu buffer and then out of the Samagaun rest day, which is the one night on this route that is doing real work. If you have sixteen days, spend the two extra on the side-trip itinerary, which puts them into the ascent ladder at Samagaun and Samdo rather than into hotels, and gets you to Manaslu Base Camp on the way.
Route and altitude profile for the 14-day circuit
The circuit is a horseshoe, not a loop. You walk north up the Budhi Gandaki on the east side of Manaslu, cross the range at a single point, Larkya La, and walk down the Dudh Khola into the head of the Marsyangdi on the west side. The two valleys have completely different weather, and the trek changes character three times on the way: gorge, then Tibetan high valley, then pass.
- 4,176 m of altitude gained between night one and the pass
- Ten walking days, 4–7 hours each, 8–10 on pass day
- Two valleys, two conservation areas, one pass
The 14-day Manaslu Circuit at a glance
| Day | Route | Distance | Hours | Sleep at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kathmandu → Machha Khola by jeep | n/a | Drive 8–9 h | 930 m |
| 2 | Machha Khola → Jagat | 22 km | 6–7 h | 1,340 m |
| 3 | Jagat → Philim → Deng | 20 km | 6–7 h | 1,860 m |
| 4 | Deng → Ghap → Namrung | 19 km | 6–7 h | 2,630 m |
| 5 | Namrung → Lihi → Lho | 11 km | 4–5 h | 3,180 m |
| 6 | Lho → Shyala → Samagaun | 9 km | 4 h | 3,530 m |
| 7 | Samagaun, acclimatisation day | 8–14 km | 4–7 h | 3,530 m |
| 8 | Samagaun → Samdo | 8 km | 3–4 h | 3,875 m |
| 9 | Samdo → Dharamsala (Larkya Phedi) | 7 km | 3–4 h | 4,460 m |
| 10 | Dharamsala → Larkya La (5,106 m) → Bimthang | 24 km | 8–10 h | 3,720 m |
| 11 | Bimthang → Tilije → Dharapani | 25 km | 7–8 h | 1,860 m |
| 12 | Dharapani → Besisahar → Kathmandu | n/a | Drive 9–10 h | 1,400 m |
| 13 | Kathmandu, buffer and rest day | n/a | n/a | 1,400 m |
| 14 | Departure | n/a | n/a | n/a |
The 14-day itinerary, day by day
What each day actually involves, the ground under your feet, how long it takes, where you sleep and what tends to go wrong.
Day 1: Kathmandu → Machha Khola (930 m) by jeep
A long travel day and there is no way to make it a short one. You leave Kathmandu early, follow the Prithvi Highway west and turn north at Dhading Besi onto a road that gets progressively less like a road. Past Arughat and Soti Khola it is a 4WD track cut into the side of the Budhi Gandaki gorge, and the last two hours to Machha Khola (930 m) are the ones people remember.
The roadhead moves. Every year or two the track creeps a little further up the valley, which is good news, it removes a dull walking day at the bottom, but it means the first day of any Manaslu itinerary is written against a moving target. We will tell you where the jeep can actually get to when you book rather than promise a village and change it later. Bring something to hold on to.
- Drive: 8–9 hours
- Sleep at 930 m
- Meals: L, D
- Teahouse, Machha Khola
Day 2: Machha Khola → Jagat (1,340 m)
Your first walking day, and a hot one: 22 km up the gorge on a trail that spends the morning climbing over spurs and dropping back to the river, past Khorlabesi and the small hot spring at Tatopani, over the first of the long suspension bridges, and up through Dobhan and Yaru. It is sub-tropical down here. In the wrong season there are leeches.
Jagat (1,340 m) is a stone-paved village on a shelf above the river, and it is where the trek formally begins: this is the restricted-area checkpost, where your permit, your passport and your guide's licence are all recorded. Everything above here needs the paperwork we filed for you in Kathmandu. See the permits page for what that involves.
- Trek: 6–7 hours
- Sleep at 1,340 m (+410 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Jagat
Day 3: Jagat → Philim → Deng (1,860 m)
A long day with a lot of up and down in it and not much net gain, which is exactly what you want this early. The trail climbs to Salleri, drops to Sirdibas and crosses the Budhi Gandaki on a long swaying bridge to Philim, a substantial Gurung village strung along a terraced hillside.
Above Philim the valley turns sharply north and the gorge narrows into the most dramatic section of the lower trek: bamboo and pine, the river a long way down, the path occasionally gallery-cut into the rock. At Lokpa a trail branches right into the Tsum Valley. Ours carries straight on to Deng, a tiny cluster of lodges at 1,860 m.
- Trek: 6–7 hours
- Sleep at 1,860 m (+520 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Deng
Day 4: Deng → Ghap → Namrung (2,630 m)
The day the trek changes country. You cross the river repeatedly on suspension bridges, climb through forest, and start passing mani walls, chortens and painted kani gateways in earnest. At Ghap the carvings on the mani stones are worth stopping for. Above it the forest turns to fir and rhododendron and the air finally cools.
Namrung (2,630 m)sits behind a stone gateway and feels like a different country from Jagat two days below: flat-roofed houses, firewood stacked on the roofs, yaks rather than buffalo, and butter tea on offer. It is also the second permit checkpost. This is the largest single gain of the trek at 770 m, and it is taken here deliberately, while you are still low enough for it to be safe.
- Trek: 6–7 hours
- Sleep at 2,630 m (+770 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Namrung
Day 5: Namrung → Lihi → Lho (3,180 m)
A shorter day, and the one where the mountain finally shows up. Through Lihi with its chortens and barley terraces, across the Hinang Khola with the Ganesh Himal behind you, through Sho, and then the trail turns a corner and Manaslu (8,163 m) is simply there at the head of the valley. People stop walking.
Lho (3,180 m)is a working Tibetan village on a terraced slope with the Ribung Gompa above it, and the fifteen minutes it takes to climb up to the gompa at dusk buys you the best view of the mountain on the whole trek. It is also your first night above 3,000 m. Drink more water than you want to and take the evening slowly.
- Trek: 4–5 hours
- Sleep at 3,180 m (+550 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Lho
Day 6: Lho → Shyala → Samagaun (3,530 m)
A short, deliberately easy day, and one of the loveliest. The trail climbs gently through fir forest to Shyala (3,500 m), which sits in a bowl with Manaslu on one side, Himal Chuli and Ngadi Chuli around it and Naike Peak ahead. Some groups sleep here instead; we normally push the extra hour to Samagaun so that the acclimatisation day is spent somewhere with a clinic and more than one option for a walk.
Samagaun (3,530 m)is the centre of gravity of this trek. It is a several-hundred-year-old Tibetan village of stone houses and yak pens, with a working monastery, a seasonal health post, and an 8,163 m wall closing the head of the valley. Only 350 m of gain today, on purpose.
- Trek: 4 hours
- Sleep at 3,530 m (+350 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Samagaun
Day 7: Samagaun, the acclimatisation day
The most important day of the trek, and the one that does not look like it. You do not lie in. You walk up several hundred metres, come back down, and sleep at the same height as last night, which is how the body is persuaded to make the red blood cells it will need at 5,106 m.
Which walk depends on how the group is going. The gentle option is Birendra Lake (3,450 m) and on up towards the snout of the Manaslu glacier, three to four hours return. The middle option is the steep climb to Pungyen Gompaat about 3,900 m, on a shelf directly beneath the south-east face, which is the most atmospheric half-day on the route. Groups moving well take the long haul to Manaslu Base Camp (about 4,800 m), six to seven hours and roughly 1,300 m of ascent. That is a serious day and the single most useful thing you can do for your pass crossing, which is why we also sell it as its own 16-day itinerary with a spare day around it.
In the afternoon, rest properly, eat more than you feel like, and let your guide take your oxygen saturation. Samagaun is the last place on the route with anything resembling medical facilities, and it is the natural point to make an honest assessment of who is going well and who is not.
- Walk: 4–7 hours
- Up to 3,900–4,800 m, sleep 3,530 m
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Samagaun
Day 8: Samagaun → Samdo (3,875 m)
A deliberately short day, three to four hours, 8 km, 345 m of gain, because from here on the arithmetic of altitude matters more than the distance. You leave the last trees behind almost immediately, pass the Kermo Kharka grazing flats and climb gently up an open, tawny valley with blue sheep on the slopes and, if you are lucky, lammergeier overhead.
Samdo (3,875 m) is the last permanent village on the route, settled by Tibetan refugees in the 1960s and still trading north over the border. From the ridge above it you can see the Rui Lapass into Tibet, about three hours' walk away at 4,998 m, which is the standard extra acclimatisation walk on the 16-day side-trip itinerary. Arrive by early afternoon, eat a proper lunch, then take a slow walk uphill and come back down. Your guide will take your oxygen saturation and resting pulse this evening and again in the morning.
- Trek: 3–4 hours
- Sleep at 3,875 m (+345 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Samdo
Day 9: Samdo → Dharamsala / Larkya Phedi (4,460 m)
Short in distance, significant in altitude and significant in atmosphere. Three to four hours up a bare valley, across the Larkya Khola on a wooden bridge, past the ruins of the old Larkya Bazaar trading post, and up to Dharamsala (4,460 m), which most people and most maps also call Larkya Phedi, the foot of Larkya.
It is not a village. It is a handful of stone and tin buildings on open ground, with limited beds, limited food, no shop, no clinic and, in a bad autumn, more trekkers than mattresses. That is the single strongest argument for booking a Manaslu trek ahead rather than turning up. You arrive by early afternoon on purpose, so there are five or six hours to drink, eat and rest before a 03:30 start.
This is also the last honest decision point. If anyone is not right here, the answer is to go down to Samdo and try again tomorrow, or to turn round entirely. There is no bail-out on the far side of the pass that is shorter than finishing the trek.
- Trek: 3–4 hours
- Sleep at 4,460 m (+585 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Basic lodge, Dharamsala
Day 10: Larkya La (5,106 m) → Bimthang (3,720 m)
The day the whole trip is built around, and the longest day of the trek by a wide margin. Breakfast is porridge and tea in the dark; you leave Dharamsala between 03:30 and 04:30by head torch, in every layer you own, at somewhere between −5 °C and −15 °C. You will be too hot within twenty minutes and too cold every time you stop.
The climb is four to five hours over lateral moraine and past a string of frozen tarns, gaining 646 m. It is gentler than Thorong La on the Annapurna Circuit and there are no brutal switchbacks, but it goes on and on, and there is a run of false tops near the end, each of which looks like the pass and none of which is. Assume no tea shack. The pace is the slowest you have ever kept, deliberately.
Then the cairn and the prayer flags at 5,106 m, with Himlung Himal, Cheo Himal and Kang Guru laid out to the west and the Annapurnas somewhere beyond them. You get fifteen or twenty minutes, not an hour. Standing about at 5,106 m in wind chill is how cold injuries happen and how mild symptoms become serious ones.
The descent is the part nobody warns you about, and on this trek it is worse than the climb: 1,386 m down over about 12 km. The first section off the pass is steep, loose moraine that holds snow and ice well into the spring and is where a rope occasionally comes out; then a long, knee-punishing descent beside the Salpudanda glacier into the meadows above Bimthang (3,720 m). Four hours or more, and it is where the twisted ankles happen, because people relax after the summit photograph. Poles are not optional.
- Trek: 8–10 hours
- Pass 5,106 m, sleep 3,720 m
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Bimthang
Day 11: Bimthang → Tilije → Dharapani (1,860 m)
The reward day, and a long one at 25 km, though all of it is downhill and most of it is beautiful. You wake in Bimthang, a meadow of yak pasture and ruined stone huts ringed by Manaslu's western glaciers, with Manaslu itself visible from the far side for the last time.
Then down the Dudh Khola through rhododendron and pine into warm air, which after ten days above the treeline feels like a different planet: Yak Kharka, Kharche, the apple orchards at Goa, and Tilije, where you rejoin something that could reasonably be called a road. A last climb over a small ridge brings you to Dharapani (1,860 m) on the Marsyangdi, which is a stop on the Annapurna Circuit. The lodges here are full of people who started walking three days ago in clean clothes. You will notice the difference.
- Trek: 7–8 hours
- Down to 1,860 m (−1,860 m)
- Meals: B, L, D
- Teahouse, Dharapani
Days 12–14: Dharapani, Kathmandu and home
Day 12 is the drive out: jeep down the Marsyangdi road to Besisahar, then the Prithvi Highway east to Kathmandu. It is nine to ten hours and the first three of them are rough. Groups who would rather break it up sometimes overnight in Besisahar or Pokhara instead; tell us at booking and we will build it that way.
Day 13 is the buffer. If everything has gone to plan it is a rest day in Kathmandu, the first hot shower that does not cost extra, and time for Boudhanath or Patan. If the pass cost you a day to weather, or the Dharapani road lost a morning to a landslide, this is the day that absorbs it and the reason you still make your flight home. Day 14 is your departure.
- Drive 9–10 hours
- Hotel, Kathmandu
The acclimatisation logic behind the 14-day plan
Almost every serious altitude problem on this trek can be traced to what happened in the four days before the pass, not on the pass itself. Here is the ladder this itinerary climbs, and why each rung is where it is.
| Night | Sleep at | Gain | What it is doing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machha Khola | 930 m | n/a | Well below any altitude effect |
| Jagat | 1,340 m | +410 m | Still low; the guideline does not bite yet |
| Deng | 1,860 m | +520 m | Still low, and a lot of up and down for the net gain |
| Namrung | 2,630 m | +770 m | The largest gain of the trek, taken while it is safe to |
| Lho | 3,180 m | +550 m | First night that feels high |
| Samagaun | 3,530 m | +350 m | Deliberately small, and a short day to go with it |
| Samagaun rest day | 3,530 m | 0 m | Climb high to 3,900–4,800 m, sleep low. The single most valuable day |
| Samdo | 3,875 m | +345 m | Well inside the guideline, deliberately |
| Dharamsala | 4,460 m | +585 m | Above the guideline, the one aggressive night, and unavoidable |
| Larkya La (crossed) | 5,106 m | +646 m | Touched, not slept at. Down to 3,720 m the same day |
The standard guidance above 3,000 m is to raise your sleeping altitude by no more than about 500 m a day with a rest day roughly every 1,000 m. This itinerary meets that everywhere except the Samdo to Dharamsala night, where there is simply nothing to sleep in between. That is why the Samagaun day is not negotiable, and why the 16-day side-trip itinerary, which adds a second acclimatisation night at Samdo, is the one we recommend to anyone with a difficult altitude history.
Two other things we do as standard, because they are cheap and they work: daily pulse oximetry above 3,000 m, and supplementary oxygen carried from Samagaun onwards. Oxygen buys time to descend. It is never a reason to keep climbing. The full protocol is on the Larkya La page, and the symptoms to watch for are in the altitude sickness guide.
What's included and what isn't
The list is the same whatever group size you book at, and it is the whole list. If something is not on it, it is not in the price.
Included
- All ground transport, Kathmandu to Machha Khola and Dharapani back to Kathmandu
- A licensed, English-speaking guide for the whole trek
- A shared porter, one per two trekkers, up to 22 kg between you
- Every teahouse night on the trail, twin-share, booked ahead at Samagaun, Samdo and Dharamsala
- Three meals a day while trekking
- All three permits: the Manaslu Restricted Area Permit, MCAP and ACAP
- Guide and porter wages, insurance, food and lodging
- First-aid kit with a pulse oximeter, and oxygen on the pass section
- All government and local taxes
Not included
- International flights to and from Kathmandu
- Nepal visa, available on arrival
- Hotels and meals in Kathmandu
- Travel and medical insurance covering 6,000 m and helicopter rescue, required
- Drinks, hot showers, Wi-Fi and charging on the trail
- Personal trekking kit and clothing
- Tips for the guide and porter
What to bring, what to buy in the UK and what to hire in Kathmandu is on the Manaslu Circuit packing list. What the permits are, why there are three of them and who arranges them is on the permits page.
Can the 14-day itinerary be lengthened?
Yes, and the question is only ever which day you are adding. Shortening it is the direction we will not go, because the days a shorter itinerary takes are the buffer day and then the Samagaun rest day.
| Version | Days | What actually changes |
|---|---|---|
| Classic circuit | 14 | The baseline on this page, ten walking days, one acclimatisation day, one buffer day |
| Circuit with Tsum Valley | 19 | Turns off at Lokpa for the Tsum Valley and its gompas at Mu and Rachen, then returns to the main route for the pass |
| Circuit with Base Camp and side trips | 16 | Two nights at Samagaun instead of one, with a full day up to Manaslu Base Camp at about 4,800 m and back, and a second night at Samdo for the Rui La walk. The safest version we run |
What we will not do is compress the ascent. Every one of these versions keeps the Samagaun acclimatisation day and none of them sleeps higher than 4,460 m before the pass. If a quote you have been sent goes Namrung to Samagaun to Samdo to the pass without a rest day, ask the operator why.
What the 14-day Manaslu Circuit costs
The 14-day itinerary on this page starts at £1,295 per person, based on two trekkers sharing, all-inclusive on the trail. Per-person prices fall as the group grows, because a guide and a porter are fixed costs split more ways. There is no solo rate, because there is no solo permit: two trekkers is the legal minimum in the restricted area.
The number that matters more is the total from the UK, realistically £2,100–£2,700 per person once you add return flights, the Nepal visa, insurance that genuinely covers 6,000 m, city hotel nights, tips and on-trail spending. The full breakdown, including what a day on the trail costs and the hidden items other operators leave out, is on the Manaslu Circuit cost page.
Payment is a 10% deposit to hold your dates, handled through our brand hub 6knepaltreks.com, with the balance paid in Nepal before the trek starts. Free cancellation up to 14 days before departure. The terms are short and in plain English.
Ask about a departure date: +977 9704551232