Chele La Pass

PeaksParo District, Bhutan

August·Quiet month

Aug–Sep

Nothing closes and the road stays open all monsoon, but August and early September sit under cloud and afternoon rain, the poppies are over and Jomolhari rarely shows; by late September the rain begins to pull back.

Year-round The manidhar flags, the wind and the drop into the Paro and Haa valleys are here every month; the flowers, the snow and the far snow peaks all come and go with the seasons.

Chele La's ridge looks dusted with snow from a distance, but the white is cloth. Thousands of tall manidhar poles stand planted in the turf, each one raised in memory of someone who has died and left to fray away in the wind. The pass itself is the highest point any road in Bhutan reaches, a narrow strip of blacktop that climbs out of Paro's pine and rhododendron forest and tops out on a bare saddle above the treeline, with the Haa valley falling away on the far side. There is no town here and no monastery on the summit — only the flags, a few roadside stupas and the wind. On clear mornings two snow peaks stand over the tree line to the north: Jomolhari, 7,326 metres, and the narrow spire of Jichu Drake. Bhutan restricted mountaineering above 6,000 metres in 1994 and banned it outright in 2003, so this is a skyline nobody is permitted to stand on. Most people drive up from Paro for half a day, and the pass makes them work for it: the air is thin, the wind rarely stops, and a bright ridge can be swallowed by mist within the hour and clear again just as quickly. Walk out along the crest and the poles thicken into a forest; in June and July blue poppies come up in the rocks between them. A footpath drops off the ridge through fir and juniper to Kila Goenpa, a nunnery whose retreat huts are wedged into a cliff face above Paro. Foreign visitors reach all of it the same way — with a licensed Bhutanese guide, paying the country's Sustainable Development Fee of US$100 a night. By early afternoon the cloud usually comes up out of the valleys, the parked jeeps empty out, and the ridge belongs to the flags again.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come up early — the ridge is usually clear at dawn and fogged in by mid-afternoon, and Jomolhari tends to show itself on clear mornings and be gone by lunch.
The saddle stands more than 1,500 metres above Paro — breathlessness and headaches are common at this height, so walk the ridge slowly and turn back if you start feeling worse.
Snow and ice close the road — from about late December to February the climb is the first route out of Paro to shut, so ask your driver before you commit the day to it.
You cannot go alone — Bhutan requires every foreign visitor to travel with a licensed guide and pay a nightly Sustainable Development Fee, and the pass is a standard half-day add-on from Paro.

Things to do

1
Spin the prayer wheels by the roadside stupas
A small cluster of stupas and hand-turned wheels sits just below the crest, ringed by flags. Bhutanese drivers and pilgrims stop here before crossing, turning each wheel clockwise in passing, and most travellers end up doing the same before or after the ridge walk.
2
Walk into the forest of memorial flags
Thousands of poles crowd the saddle so thickly that the ridge reads as a texture from the road. Walking in among them, with the cloth snapping and the strings working in the wind overhead, is the pass's defining half-hour — and each pole was planted for a particular person.
3
Scan the north skyline for the peaks nobody may climb
Walk to the northern lip of the saddle on a clear dawn and pick the two great summits out over the treeline: Jomolhari, at 7,326 metres, and the needle of Jichu Drake. Bhutan banned mountaineering above 6,000 metres, so this is a skyline you can find but no one is allowed to stand on. Come early — the cloud usually rises out of the valleys and swallows both by lunch.
4
Trace the switchback road dropping west into the Haa valley
Stand on the western edge and follow the thread of blacktop as it falls away toward Haa and, beyond it, the Tibetan border. Far fewer jeeps ever descend that side than grind up from Paro — the valley stayed closed to foreign visitors until 2002 and is still one of Bhutan's emptiest corners. From up here you can read that emptiness in a glance.
5
Drive the switchbacks to the top of Bhutan's road network
The blacktop climbs in tight turns through pine and rhododendron before breaking out of the trees entirely, opening onto layered ridges the whole way up. It is a slow hour and a half from Paro, and the treeline arrives abruptly — one moment forest, the next bare grass and flags.
6
Walk off the ridge to the cliff nunnery at Kila Goenpa
A footpath leaves the pass and drops through fir and juniper to Kila Goenpa, where seven small temples and a row of retreat huts are wedged into a cliff face above the Paro valley. Nuns have kept the ledge as a meditation site since the 9th century. The walk down takes one to three hours and ends on the road, where drivers wait.