From Tilicho to Jomosom

Day 18 Tilicho West Camp to Army Camp

We were planning to cross the Muktinath Himal via a newly discovered route called the ‘New Tilicho Pass’ (supposedly easier than the Mesokanto La) but our guides never found it and instead we walked up the ridge of a lateral moraine straight towards the north-west of our lake camp. I think that this is one of the branches of the Mesokanto La.
The gentle ascent from camp with fantastic views all around was followed by a steep descent, one last short steep ascent and there we were, floating high above Mustang and the Kali Gandaki valley.

After this we were off the snow and it was down all the way to a good camp known as the Army Camp. This was bang in the middle of a supposedly restricted military area but our guide took us there anyway in the knowledge that this place was not used by the army anymore.

I have no idea how temporary this is but the place didn't look like it had been abandoned that long ago. In any case the helipad made a nice flat campsite!

Walking time about 6 hours.

None of the maps that I could see is clear about where this "new Tilicho pass" runs but I managed to find out later that we would have needed to backtrack a fair amount from our Tilicho West Camp, walking back up to where we came from the day before and heading north for a little while before crossing a ridge and heading down a valley.
I think that one of our guides might have known that route but didn't want to go back so high before descending...and honestly I don't blame him.

It seems that the new pass might be more appropriate to use if you are coming from the East camp and do not want to stop at the West camp, In this case there is no need to descend to the lake and following this new route makes sense. If you want to camp by the lake, climbing all the way back up only to descend again on the other side seems pointless.

Day 19 Army Camp to Jomosom and end of our trek

The hard work is over and we only have a long, at times steep descent of 1000m through a forest until we reach the Thini Khola, a tributary of the Kali Gandaki. We pass through the pretty village of Thinigaon then cross through an extensive network of terraced fields to reach the valley bottom, Jomosom and civilization.

Walking time to Jomosom was about 3 and a half hours

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