Today’s pass needs, if snow free, 3–5 hours to ascend the 800m/2,600ft to the summit and 3–4 hours to descend the 1,500m/4,900ft to Bimthang. It can be very cold, especially if windy. Snow and ice conditions demand more care and time.

The trail along the northern moraine of the Larke Glacier is not steep or difficult but is long and continuously rocky underfoot. Snow poles line the route. From Dharamsala, it rises gently to a ridge followed by a long gentle climb to the vast and jumbled moraine. Larke Peak on the Larke Himal wall and Pawar Peak on the Cheo Himal emerge to the south and north of the glacier. A short climb leads to an ablation valley followed by a drop to pass the first of four small scattered frozen lakes. A gradual ascent to the left up the glacial moraine and a final pull leads to the first set of summit flags. Back to the east, look over the trail to the Tibetan border ranges beyond Samdo Peak. The Larke Himal wall blocks more southerly views; the Pawar Himal views to the north.

A long moraine-ridge runs from the first flags, parallel to the Larke wall and separated from it by a deep gully, to a second set of flags and astounding views ahead. (These flags also mark the border between the Manaslu and Annapurna Conservation areas.)

To the west, peaks include (anticlockwise from the north) the impressive Pawar Peak (6,620m/21,720ft), Cheo Himal (6,820m/22,376ft), the Himlung pyramid (7,126m/23,380ft), Gyaji Kung (7,030m23,065ft), Kang Garu (6,981m/22,905ft) plus Annapurna II (7,937m/26,041ft) and its satellites away to the east. Below lies a magnificent basin within dramatic rock and ice walls from which flow a complex of glaciers.

The descent begins from these flags and drops steeply off the moraine then traverses loose scree slopes down a set of steep zigzags to the grassy Dangboche Kharka (4,450m/14,600ft) almost directly below.          

The trail offers a bird’s eye view of the glacial action that feeds the upper Dudh (milk) Khola. From the Pawar Himal, the Salpudanda Glacier merges with the Ponkar Glacier below the medial Ponkar Lake (trapped between their moraines) and is then joined by the western Kechakyu Glacier to form the Bimthang Glacier that exists in the valley.

From Dangboche Kharka the gradient eases and the trail follows the curve of the lateral moraine of the Salpudanda/Bimthang glacier into the lovely Bimthang Valley. A T-junction indicates a path up over the moraine to Ponkar Lake or down to the scenic settlement of Bimthang (plain of sand). The Kechakyu Himal rises to the north and Manaslu’s northeast face and connecting ranges stand high above the valley to the east. Bimthang is now the summer grazing settlement for the people of Samdo. Before the closure of the Tibetan border, it was an important trading post. The Tibetan Khampa warriors held a center here in the 1970s.