Upper Dolpa Trekking is the trekking in western Nepal and it is quite different. This part is less developed and fewer facilities are available for tourists but every year it is offering more facilities than before. Access is also quite harder area such as Dolpa, Humla, and Jumla.
This trekking asks for intense exploration and interested trekkers must be prepared for some delays and other hardships. It is also more expensive to trek to this part. It is rich in medicinal herbs.
Upper Dolpo and Lower Dolpo area are knowns as medicine hills. In summer time people from different parts of Nepal and even Tibet go to this place to collect an insect known as Himalayan Viagra. This medicine is both plan and insect. It is inactive in winter and comes out alive during summer. We call it Yarsa Gumba. This insect has a high commercial demand as the sexual tonic.
The history and anthropology of this place are quite complex and fascinating. Much of the geographic territory, now is known as Nepal formerly consisted of forty-six small hill states and kingdoms. Jumla was one of the powerful Hill states at that time. Since centuries the western part of Nepal including Jumla has played a significant role in the political and cultural chapter of Nepal.
The west of Nepal also reserved two famous and beautiful national parks: Shey Phoksundo and Rara. People have lived here only for a few hundred years and are among the world’s highest dwellers. The village is in upper Dolpo region (4300 meters and above). The locals still practice the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet Bon. Also, Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard and David Snellgrove’s Himalayan Pilgrimage have magnified the mysticism of Dolpo. Both writers had visited the Shey Gumba to the north of the Phoksumdo lake inner Dolpo. This is the aim of most trekkers. You do not have to worry as we will take you even further into this mysterious land.