The views from Khopra Ridge, at 3,600 meters, are fantastic!
Here are some key tips on Nepal’s Khopra Ridge logistics and planning. These tips will help you have fun on your trek in Nepal.
Nepal is an absolutely amazing country, full of friendly people and big mountains. Some of the best walks in the world are found in this country. Many well known ones include Annapurna and Everest Base Camp treks. Here is some information to help you learn more about a lesser known trek called Khopra Ridge that is shorter and not as crowded.
Truly breathtaking views from the village of Ghandruk.
Nepal’s Khopra Ridge Logistics – Planning Tips
Trek Overview
The Khopra Ridge Trek can be combined with other treks to make for a longer trek. We combined the Poon Hill and Khopra Ridge treks for an 8 day family adventure. It starts outside of Pokhara in the Annapurna area of the Himalayas.
Our 8 day trek was moderately difficult. We hiked between 4 and 9 hours, averaging 6. There is a lot of ascent and descent along the trail. The walking is generally along good trails and has stairs, bridges, and some flat parts.
Can you do this on your own?
Yes. This is definitely possible to do on your own without a guide. There are lots of good books on trekking in Nepal and different websites with tons of info. There is not as much Khopra Ridge logistics since it’s a newer hike, but there is still some info.
We weren’t sure ahead of time and chose to get a guide since we had a limited amount of time and had our two young children with us. Our guide, Binod Mahat, owns Hike Nepal.
The guide booked our accommodation, helped us order our food at the tea houses, and took care of all the logistics. Additionally, he also shared his local knowledge of the area.
We felt like our kids were always safe while trekking in Nepal.
Safety – How safe is Nepal for kids?
Honestly, I was a pleasantly surprised at how safe it felt to be in Nepal with our kids. Our kids were 8 and 10 at the time so they could get around fine. I saw many other tourists with babies or young toddlers (most of the people with babies or toddlers didn’t go trekking, but they were in the cities).
Nepalis seem to really like kids. It felt like wherever we went the locals were smiling and saying hi to our kids. Oddly, the locals often wanted to take their picture with our kids. They would sidle over and ask or mime taking a photo with our kids. Our kids were shy, but obliging, and now they know what it must feel like to be a celebrity with everyone always wanting a photograph with you.
A bridge crossing along the less travelled part of the trek.
How Difficult Is The Walking?
The walking is generally no more difficult than walking along a well made trail. The trails that pass through the villages are essentially the main roads for locals to get from one village to another and they are well maintained. They are typically wide enough for two people to walk side by side and have a variety of bridges that span rivers and creeks.
However, the difficulty really depends on how far and how much elevation gain you are doing each day. Some days along our trek were long (8 hours) and climbed over 4,000 feet at elevation. Those days wore me out.
A typical teahouse along the trek at Tadapani.
Nepal’s Khopra Ridge Logistics – Teahouses
What Is A Teahouse?
When you go trekking in Nepal a teahouse is simply the name of the hotel/restaurant where you stay at night. The villages along the major trekking routes have lots of teahouses.
This is one of our two rooms at the teahouse in Dobato. Nothing fancy, but it worked.
What Are The Teahouses Like?
The teahouses come in a wide range of levels of comfort. All of them, except for the community lodge at Khopra Ridge, had a shower. Keep in mind that in some places a shower is a trickle of water coming out of a hose, but there was always some way to wash at the end of the day.
All of the teahouses have food available for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The menu at all is the same. I heard a rumor that the menu is set by the Annapurna Conservation Area. However, the food varied quite a bit as spaghetti with tomato sauce varied a lot from one place to another.
The teahouses all had private rooms for sleeping with beds. Some of them had shared bath, but others had a bath in the room. Typically, they would provide a pillow and warm blanket and sheets, but we always had our sleeping bags with us.
The modest rooms at the community owned Khopra Ridge teahouse.
Do You Need To Book Teahouses In Advance?
This is a good question. This is one of the reasons we hired a guide. He booked all of our teahouses in advance so we were assured of having a place to sleep and eat at the end of the day.
I think that some of the bigger villages have so many teahouses that you could just show up and find a room. The smaller villages, especially those higher up just don’t have enough rooms for everyone. I heard stories about the last couple stops on the Annapurna base camp trek that were so full the main rooms would be full of people sleeping on the floor.
Thus, it is definitely possible to book teahouses in advance, but I’m sure that not all the trekkers do so.
We always got drinks at our meals and refilled our water bottles.
The Teahouses Provide Clean, Filtered Drinking Water
All of the teahouses provide clean, filtered water at the end of the day to fill up your water bottles. Thus, when we trekked Khopra Ridge with our kids we always filled up our bottles at teahouses during the day.