Morning practice
Gentle hatha and breath, outdoors when the weather allows, suited to thin air and cold hands. No previous yoga experience is needed.
A high place · Sindhupalchok, Nepal
Panch Pokhari
पाँचपोखरी
Five lakes in a bowl at four thousand metres, with the Jugal range standing over them. We
walked here in Falgun 2081, and we will walk here again.
- Altitude
- 4,100 mAmong the highest wetlands in Nepal, though not a listed Ramsar site.
- Where
- SindhupalchokBagmati Province, under the Jugal range, north-east of Kathmandu.
- Length
- 5 to 7 daysBy the Bhotang approach through Melamchi. The Chautara route is longer.
- Best months
- Feb–Mar, Oct–NovWe walked it in Falgun. Autumn is clearer; late winter is quieter and colder.
Why we go
Five lakes, and very few people
Panch Pokhari means simply five lakes. They sit at about 4,100 metres in Sindhupalchok, held in a shallow bowl of rock and grass with the Jugal range, Dorje Lakpa and Gaurishankar standing around them. Hindus and Buddhists both hold the water sacred, and at Janai Purnima pilgrims climb here to bathe.
It is the quieter of Nepal's two great lake pilgrimages. Gosaikunda draws thousands; Panch Pokhari draws hundreds, and outside the festival almost nobody. For a retreat that is not a small thing. You can sit at the water for an hour and hear only weather.
The Government of Nepal thought enough of it to put it on a postage stamp in 2011. The trail still has no road at the end of it.
How the ground rises
From the valley to the water
There are two ways in. The usual one leaves the road at Bhotang, above Melamchi, and climbs through Deurali and Nasempati to Laure Bhanjyang, the last shelter before the lakes. The older approach starts at Chautara and takes several days longer through Okhareni and Kami Kharka. Which one we take depends on the season, on the road, and on how much time you have.
Either way the shape is the same as every journey we run: forest, then the last village, then rhododendron, then the treeline, then bare ground and sky. The final morning is the long one.
The days
Yoga at first light. Bowls at dusk.
The rhythm is the one we keep on every journey. It is set out in full on the retreats page.
Sound healing at the lakes
The bowls, tingsha and the gong travel with us. Played beside the water at 4,100 metres, with nothing else making a sound, is not an experience the valley can offer.
Puja at the water
Offered in the ordinary Nepali way, without spectacle. You are welcome to take part or to sit nearby and watch.
Simple lodging
Lodges and shelters, and camping on the higher stages. Colder and plainer than Gosaikunda, because fewer people come. Bring a sleeping bag rated for sub-zero nights.
We have been here
Falgun 2081
The Foundation carried a group to Panch Pokhari in Falgun 2081 — February and March 2025 — under a banner reading Spiritual Cultural Adventure Tourism Journey, with yoga, meditation and Himalayan sound healing on the programme. The photographs on this page are from that journey.
Yogi Ji also holds an appreciation letter from Panchpokhari Thangpal Rural Municipality, for being first to summit Gangchempo by the Panchpokhari route and for what that brought to tourism in the municipality. We are not strangers on this ground.
Coming to the mountain safely
What this journey asks of you
Panch Pokhari is a little lower than Gosaikunda but the walking days are no shorter, and the route is emptier — fewer lodges, fewer people on the trail, and less help within reach if something goes wrong. That emptiness is why people love it and it is also why we are careful about who we take.
You need to be able to walk five to seven hours on a rough uphill path on consecutive days, carrying a day pack. At 4,100 metres most people feel the thin air: shortness of breath, a light headache, broken sleep. A headache that will not lift, vomiting, confusion or breathlessness at rest is different, and the only correct answer to it is to go down.
Please arrange insurance that explicitly covers trekking to 5,000 metres and helicopter evacuation, and speak with your doctor first if you live with a heart or lung condition, uncontrolled blood pressure, diabetes or epilepsy, or if you are pregnant.
What this journey is
A pilgrimage with yoga, meditation and sound offered along the way, for rest, calm and cultural and spiritual experience. It is not medical care, it does not treat any illness, and it is not a substitute for the treatment your doctor has given you.
No fixed departure yet
Tell us when you can come
Panch Pokhari runs on request rather than on a calendar. Write to us with roughly when you are in Nepal and how many of you there are, and we will tell you what is possible.