Trip report for Lunana Snowman (Bhutan) in October 2024 led by Almas Khan

Written by Roland Hunter FRGS (Mt Everest and Mt Makalu summitter)
Written by Roland Hunter FRGS (Mt Everest and Mt Makalu summitter)Managing Director & Founder, The Mountain Company
View from Karchung La pass on Lunana Snowman in Bhutan in October 2024
View from Karchung La pass on Lunana Snowman in October 2024 (credit: Almas Khan)

This is our thirteenth Complete Lunana Snowman in Bhutan we have organised since 2008. We are very pleased to run this trek again as we did not have a group last year due to the high visa fees for Bhutan. When I wrote the Trip Report for our Lunana Snowman in 2022 I was not sure if we would run this trek again. Fortunately, the tourism authorities and politicians in Bhutan came to their senses and reduced the visa cost in 2024 to a more reasonable level. 

As usual for our Lunana Snowman trek, our 2025 group was international coming from the UK, Australia, and the USA. Our international leader was Almas Khan and this was his eleventh Snowman. Almas worked with our regular Bhutanese guide, Tshering Dorji, who has been on all of our Snowman treks since 2008. We also had our regular cook on board, Tandin Sonam. Almas sums up his experience leading this group:

“The Snowman trek went really well. The trek crew in Bhutan are very good at what they do, and our years of training are now beginning to show great results. It is so good to see Dorji mature as a guide and have a wonderful interaction with the group, they all loved him and got some excellent information about Bhutan. The horsemen were very good and professional too. The two days in Haa helped a lot for acclimatisation and we had no problems with altitude sickness. The new A-frame tents and dining tent were great and held well in a little bit of rain and wind we got on the trek. The weather this year was very kind to us and we got some really good days with great views.”

Regarding the weather, Almas explains further “The weather conditions on the trip were exceptionally good. The temperatures were as expected - colder nights at high-altitude camps. I have had lower temperatures on this trip before ... I feel it was cold but not as cold as it has been on some of the previous trips, not having a lot of precipitation definitely helped. We all got to use our bad weather gear but not very often.. we only had two or three days when it rained while we walked, day one from Shana was one of them although it cleared by the time we got to Jomolhari Base Camp. We had good days on all passes except the day over Shinge La. It was not as muddy on the trail either compared to previous years.”

We are confident that we have now found the optimal dates for the Snowman trek in Bhutan. Over the years we have experimented with slightly different starting dates. It is a balance between having rainy weather as the monsoon winds down at the start of the trek versus getting cold later on. Later in November, there is also a higher risk of snow blocking the passes so the compromise is to start the trek a bit earlier in the Autumn season. Of course, the weather is different each year although the patterns are similar. In the past, we started a week or so earlier such as in 2019 when the group arrived in Paro on September 23rd. Whereas in 2024 our group arrived in Paro on September 30th. After time acclimatising in Paro and Haa Valley, we started the first day of the trek on October 4th. As Almas confirms arriving in the first week of October and finishing by the end of October works very well.

As explained in previous Snowman trip reports, over the last 8 years we have been focussing on improving the quality of trek food. For a long trek in the mountains, it is important to have proper nutrition and a balanced diet. In 2015, we recruited a new cook called Tandin Sonam who is a professional chef working in restaurants out of the trekking season. Tandin is amazing at his job! We also improved the provisions we bring on the trek so there is now a wider variety of food items. In particular, we have been bringing more protein both vegetarian such as soya, lentils, and pulses plus also freezed dried chicken from the UK. We also brought out a vegetable dehydrator machine to Bhutan so we now pack an ample supply of vegetables. We also bring real coffee and brew it up in our Bialetti Moka Espresso makers also brought over from the UK.

From a sustainable tourism perspective, we did our bit to clear the rubbish left behind by other trekking groups. Almas explains:

“The staff sent back about 17kg of our rubbish back from Laya and brought back another 18kg at the end of the trek. The route in Bhutan was dirtier this time compared to when I was there last, maybe more people are trekking and other companies are not taking good care of their rubbish. Sad to see that but I made sure we did our bit - brought back all our rubbish and a bit more.”

Our Snowman 2024 trek went really well and this group made the full traverse from Paro to Bumthang. The Mountain Company has a 100% record of running thirteen successful Snowman treks since 2008. Congratulations and well done to the trekkers, trek crew, and leaders!

Trek on…

Roland Hunter
The Mountain Company