Nagarkot

Nagarkot is the standard first look at the Himalaya from the Kathmandu valley: a ridge at about 2,100 metres, an hour and a half from the city, lined with hotels that all point at the same horizon. On a clear winter morning you get Langtang, Ganesh Himal, Dorje Lakpa and Manaslu laid out across the north, and a very small point far to the east that people will tell you is Everest. It usually is.

It is also entirely weather-dependent, and that is the thing to understand before booking. In cloud you have driven two hours to a hotel with a view of grey. Nobody selling you the trip will put it that way.

What you actually see

The panorama runs roughly west to east: Annapurna II on a very good day, then Manaslu, Ganesh Himal, Langtang Lirung, Dorje Lakpa, Gauri Shankar, and the Everest group as a low serrated edge on the far horizon. Everest is 160 kilometres away and looks it. Anyone expecting the mountain to dominate will be disappointed; what is impressive is the width of the wall, not the height of any one part of it.

The best light is the fifteen minutes before the sun clears the eastern ridge, when the peaks go pink from the top down. This is over quickly and it happens whether you are awake or not.

October to December, and why

Post-monsoon air is washed and the visibility is the best of the year. By late February the dust and agricultural burning have started and the Himalaya spends most days behind a brown haze; by April you can be on the ridge in perfectly pleasant weather and see nothing at all beyond the nearest hills. Winter mornings are cold, near freezing on the ridge in January, and worth it.

There is a view tower a couple of kilometres along the ridge from the main hotel strip which is higher and gives a wider sweep than most hotel terraces.

The reason to come is the walk down

Driving up, sleeping, photographing sunrise and driving back is three hours in a car for twenty minutes of view. The better version is to walk.

Nagarkot to Changunarayan takes about three hours, mostly downhill along the ridge and then through pine forest and terraced fields, ending at the oldest temple in the valley. A fifth-century foundation with stone carvings and a Garuda that appears on Nepali currency. It is a proper day’s walking on a clear path with villages along it, no permit and no altitude problem.

From Changunarayan it is a short drive or a further hour’s walk down to Bhaktapur, which makes a two-day loop out of what most people do as an overnight.

The path is easy to follow in daylight and confusing in mist. Start after breakfast rather than at first light, and take water. There is very little on the ridge itself.

Where to stay

The hotels run in a line along the ridge and vary enormously. What matters is aspect: a north- or east-facing room with a window you can see the range from means you are not walking outside at 5.45am in the cold. Ask specifically, and be sceptical of “mountain view” as a phrase.

There is nothing much to do in Nagarkot in the evening. That is a feature if you have just arrived in Nepal and are jet-lagged, and a problem if you were expecting a village.

The alternative, honestly

If the point is a Himalayan sunrise and you are here in spring or summer, the odds are poor and the trip is a gamble. Panauti and Namobuddha, or a night in Bhaktapur, give you something that is worth doing regardless of the weather. Nagarkot is worth it in November and worth thinking twice about in May.