Tilicho Lake

LakesManang,Nepal

A turquoise glacial lake at 4,919 metres in Nepal's Annapurnas where nothing lives — no fish, not even plankton — under a 7,134-metre wall of rock.

September·Edge of season

Sep

The monsoon breaks and skies clear by late September; the traverse dries and stabilises as the rain retreats. Early September can still cloud over, but the peaks return and the season's first trekkers arrive.

Year-round The turquoise glacial lake lies frozen much of the year at 4,919 metres; the trekking windows are spring, April-May, and autumn, October-November.

Tilicho Lake is a glacial lake at 4,919 metres in the Annapurna range of central Nepal, one of the highest lakes of its size on Earth, turquoise and lifeless, with no fish and not even plankton in its cold water, under a wall of rock and ice rising to 7,134 metres. The lake is a side trip from the Annapurna Circuit, reached from the village of Manang in the high valley of the Marsyangdi, and the walk to it is the reason it is remembered: beyond the village of Khangsar the trail crosses a notorious slope of loose scree and shifting rock, timed for the frozen early hours when it holds firm, then climbs from the base camp lodge to the shore in three or four hours, the last of them on snow for much of the year. Then the lake, a sheet of turquoise in a bowl of grey rock and ice with Tilicho Peak's wall on the far side, and nothing moving on it. The valley below is Manang, a district of old stone villages with carved prayer walls and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, where the trek breaks for acclimatisation, and below base camp it opens into grazing meadows where yak herds move between glacial ponds. Hindus hold Tilicho to be the Kak Bhusundi lake of the Ramayana, where a wise crow-sage first told the epic's story to Garuda, the king of birds, and pilgrims come up in the summer. In 2000 three Russian divers descended into the frigid water in what stood for years as the highest scuba dive ever made, and found the bottom as empty as the surface. The lake is frozen most of the year and clear of ice from about June to October, and the trekking season is the autumn, when the air is dry and the sky over the Annapurnas is at its sharpest. Tilicho is a lake at the height of a mountain with nothing alive in it, and people climb for days to look at the colour.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Spring (April–May) is the quiet alternative to the autumn crowds — rhododendron colours the lower valleys, though more snow lingers on the high traverse and afternoons cloud over sooner.
Spend at least a full day acclimatizing in Manang before the base-camp push — the climb past 4,900 metres gains height fast, and altitude sickness, not the cold, is the real danger.
Reach the shore soon after dawn — mornings are calm and clear, the peaks mirror on the still water, and cloud usually boils up off the ridges by early afternoon to swallow the view.

Things to do

1
Cross the landslide traverse and climb to the shore
Beyond Khangsar the trail crosses a notorious slope of loose scree and shifting rock, timed for the frozen early hours when it holds firm. From base camp the last haul tops out near 4,900 metres, beneath the 7,134-metre wall of Tilicho Peak, where every few steps demand a pause for breath. Crest the ridge and the whole turquoise basin opens below in near-total silence, prayer flags snapping on the shore.
2
Rest in the stone villages of Manang
Break the climb in Khangsar and Manang, old villages of stacked stone and carved prayer walls. Yak trains pass through the lanes, and the flat-roofed houses sit against a wall of Annapurna peaks — a glimpse of highland Tibetan-Buddhist life above 3,500 metres.
3
Watch yak herds graze the high pastures
Below base camp the valley opens into grazing meadows where yak herds move between glacial ponds. Herders' stone shelters dot the slopes, and on still water the surrounding peaks stand mirrored — a gentler scene than the barren heights waiting above.

Watch

Nearby

18 km