Few places in the world can boast such accessible mountain grandeur as the Langtang Valley north of Kathmandu. Two days on easy trails took us from the roadhead at Syabru Besi to Kyanjin Gompa. Nestled in the shadow of mighty Langtang Lirung, this lodge-village makes a good base for day walks upvalley to spectacular viewpoints at Langshisa Kharka and on top of 5,000m Cherko Ri.

But while the views are impressive, we were surprised by how little Langtang offered in the way of a cultural experience. In the valley itself there are no ‘real’ villages – large tourist numbers have led to most settlements transforming into collections of lodges, many of which are vast and run by entrepreneurial ‘didi‘s trying to tempt hungry trekkers into their ‘dinning rooms’ for a reinvigorating thukpa or chunk of yak cheese. This pro-active touting for business was interesting as we found it nowhere else in the mountains of Nepal; neither elsewhere did we encounter so many Kathmandu guides trying to discourage us from trekking alone. Recent tragic incidents have given Langtang a reputation as somewhere not to trek solo, and though the main trails in themselves present few difficulties, we were repeatedly told it was too ‘difficult’ or ‘dangerous’ to trek by ourselves.

These constant warnings probably influenced our route choice on leaving the valley for Helambu. We’d hoped to get high on more spectacular scenery by crossing the Ganja La, but after 6 weeks of near perfect weather the snow caught up with us the morning we planned on crossing the pass, forcing a change of plans and retreat via Gosaikund.

Please click here to see our full Langtang photoset on Flickr.

Post lunch reflection in Bamboo. Love a good string of prayer-flag-thermals!

On the flanks of Cherko Ri. Behind is Langtung Lirung, the 7,000m giant on which Slovenian mountaineering legend Tomaz Humar met his end in 2009.

From the summit of Cherko Ri (4,993m), which offered some of the best views of our whole GHT trek. The mountain is Langtang Lirung, and Kyanjin Gompa from which we’d climbed up that morning is in the bottom left corner of the shot.

Nawang Dolma, our hostess in Kyanjin Gompa. Like almost everywhere in the Langtang Valley, this settlement is dominated by lodges – some 25 of them. Along with a scattering of trekking shops and bakeries this doesn’t make for a very authentic Himalayan experience. It’s very different from other touristy areas like Annapurna and Solu Khumbu where there are still many villages which haven’t been completely transformed by tourism.

Retreating from the Ganja La after 6 hours of snowfall. This meant retracing our steps nearly all the way back to Syabru Besi, and cost us 4 days of extra walking, but we’d been repeatedly told the pass was too dangerous to attempt after snow. These warnings were probably quite correct – boulder fields like this would’ve made for slow and difficult going when slippery with snow.