Manaslu Circuit Altitude at a Glance

Meters first, feet beside them. "Night" is the night number on our standard 12-day itinerary.

Spellings vary between sources: Samagaun is also written Sama Gaon, Bhimthang is Bhimtang, Dharamsala is Dharmasala, and Larkya La appears as Larke Pass or Larkya Pass. They are the same places. Figures come from our current trip page, and the section on differing numbers near the end explains the small gaps you will meet elsewhere.

Trek the Manaslu Circuit Trek

A remote and off-the-beaten-path Himalayan adventure in Nepal. The trek covers roughly 126 km (78.2 miles) and involves 5–7 hours of hiking per day through villages, forests, and the Larkya Pass

View Trip

Sleeping Altitude, Night by Night

This is the table most itinerary pages leave out. The right-hand column is the one to read: how much higher you sleep than you did the night before.

Day 12 is the drive back to Kathmandu, which is 560 m below Dharapani.

Four things stand out.

Night 5 is the biggest single step on the route. It adds 870 m, from Namrung at 2,630 m to Shyala at 3,500 m. Night 4 is the second biggest at +770 m. Nights 4 and 5 together lift you 1,640 m in two nights, from Deng at 1,860 m to Shyala, and they come in the first five nights, before the rest day and before your body has had any time at height. If one stretch of the sleeping profile deserves a trekker's attention before booking, it is this one.

After Shyala the profile flattens on purpose. Night 6 gains only 30 m, Night 7 is the rest night at the same altitude, and Night 8 adds 345 m. The next large step is Night 9, up 585 m to Dharamsala.

The first night is lower than Kathmandu. Machha Khola is 460 m below the city, so the road leg gives you no height at all. The climb starts on Night 2, and Nights 2 and 3 together add 970 m while you are still below 2,000 m.

The way down is faster than the way up. Bhimthang is 732 m below Dharamsala, and Dharapani is a further 1,818 m below Bhimthang.Photo: Bhimthang Valley duirng early morning.

Where You Go Above Your Bed

Most days on the Manaslu Circuit end at the highest point of the day, give or take the ups and downs of the trail. Three days are different, because the highest point is somewhere you do not sleep.

Only the pass is built into the route. The other two are choices you make with your guide on the day. All three follow the pattern usually called "walk high, sleep low", and the next section shows why that pattern matters to the numbers.

Checking the Standard Itinerary Against CDC Ascent Guidance

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sets out ascent guidance in its Yellow Book chapter on high-altitude travel and altitude illness, citing Wilderness Medical Society recommendations. Paraphrased, it says:

• Once above 3,000 m, raise your sleeping altitude by no more than 500 m a night.
• Allow an extra night to acclimatize for every 1,000 m of sleeping altitude gained.
• Avoid going straight up to a sleeping altitude of 2,750 m or higher in a single day.
• Day trips to high places with an evening return to a lower altitude are much less stressful on the body than sleeping high.

The CDC also sorts trips by the sleeping altitude on the first night: low risk below 2,750 m, medium from 2,750 to 3,400 m, high above 3,400 m. Night 1 here is at 890 m, so the trek starts in the lowest category. That describes the starting point, not the whole trip.

These are guidelines for travelers in general, not a pass-or-fail test. You can follow them exactly and still get altitude sick, and some people break them without trouble. We use them as a yardstick because they are specific and published. Here is the standard 12-day schedule held against them.

Reading it plainly: one night (Night 9) is over the guideline, and one (Night 5) is at it or over it, depending on how you count. Neither is a large breach, and neither is inside it either. We would rather say that than describe the build-up as gradual all the way along.

What the schedule does to soften it. Both large steps are paired with a small one. Nights 5 and 6 together gain 900 m, an average of 450 m a night. Nights 8 and 9 together gain 930 m, an average of 465 m. The CDC figure is a nightly limit, not an average, so this is a mitigation and not a pass. It is still the difference between this schedule and the one-step version on the 10-day route, covered below.

Rest nights. From the 3,000 m line to Dharamsala you gain 1,460 m of sleeping altitude. On the CDC's yardstick of one extra night per 1,000 m, that points to about one and a half extra nights. The standard schedule has one, at Samagaun, which puts it at the lower edge of the guideline. That is our reading of the numbers, not a CDC assessment of the itinerary, and it is the reason a second night at Samdo is worth asking about if you have never slept above 3,500 m.

The 2,750 m advice. Nobody goes from the road head to a bed above 2,750 m in a day here. Day 1 is a drive to Machha Khola at 890 m, and the first night at or above 2,750 m is Night 5, after four nights that build from 890 m to 2,630 m.

For symptoms, what to do if someone is struggling, and the medical side, use the altitude sickness guide. This page stays with the numbers.

Trek the Short Manaslu Circuit Trek

Remote Trails, Epic Heights — Manaslu Trek in Just 10 Days. Challenge Yourself on Nepal’s Untamed Circuit.

View Trip

Nights Above 3,000 m, 4,000 m and 5,000 m

Seven of the 12 days include time at 3,000 m or higher (Days 5 to 11). The first four days stay at or below 2,630 m, and five of the 11 nights are below 3,000 m: the first four and the last.

One feature of this profile is easy to miss. Nights 5 to 9 are five nights in a row at 3,500 m or higher, and the pass is crossed the morning after the fifth. A sixth follows at Bhimthang. There is no low-altitude night to reset until Dharapani on Night 11. The highest bed is lower than on the Everest or Gokyo routes, but this route stays high for a long stretch, which is a different kind of load from a trek that touches a high point and drops straight back.

Highest Bed vs Highest Point: How Manaslu Compares

The distance between where you sleep and where you walk is the most useful single comparison between treks. Here is the Manaslu Circuit set against three other Places Nepal routes, using the figures on their altitude pages.

The Manaslu Circuit's highest bed is 340 m lower than Gokyo's, 680 m lower than Gorak Shep, and 910 m higher than Mardi Himal's High Camp. Its gap between point and bed is the second widest in this set.

That does not make it the easier trek. The gap is closed in one long day, the trek is remote, and the higher beds come after a long run of nights already above 3,500 m. What a lower highest bed does mean is that the nights you sleep through are at lower altitude than on the Everest or Gokyo routes, and that the real altitude test on Manaslu is the pass day and the night before it. For a direct comparison of the two big circuits, see Everest Base Camp vs the Manaslu Circuit.

Photo: Dharmasala camp, the highest sleeping point of trek

The Larkya La Day in Numbers

Pass day is Day 10, and it starts from the highest bed.

• Start: Dharamsala, 4,460 m
• Climb to the pass: +646 m to 5,106 m (16,752 ft)
• Descent to Bhimthang: −1,378 m to 3,728 m
• Net change over the day: −732 m

Two points follow from those numbers. First, time above 5,000 m is a short part of one day, not a night, and you sleep 1,378 m below the highest point. Second, the longest drop is not the pass day but the day after it: Bhimthang to Dharapani is 1,818 m.

The pass is a one-way crossing. Turning back is a decision to make at Dharamsala or in the first hours of the climb, not on the far side, because once you are over the top the practical way down is forward. How you slept at 4,460 m and how you feel that morning are the real altitude decision of the trek. Timings, snow conditions, the start hour and what the crossing is like are in the Larkya La pass guide.

Samagaun Rest Day: Manaslu Base Camp, Birendra Tal and Pungyen Gompa

The standard itinerary spends two nights at Samagaun, 3,530 m. The second day is the only scheduled rest day, and what you do with it changes your altitude exposure a great deal.

Birendra Tal, 3,450 m (11,319 ft). The easy option, a walk to the lake that our trip page describes as a comfortable two-hour return. It is 80 m below Samagaun, so as an altitude exercise it adds nothing: you walk slightly down from your bed and back. It is a good active rest, and the acclimatization comes from the second night at 3,530 m, not from the lake.

Manaslu Base Camp, 4,800 m (15,748 ft). The demanding option, listed as a 6 to 8 hour round trip. It is 1,270 m above Samagaun, 340 m above Dharamsala (the highest bed of the trek) and 306 m below Larkya La. This is a genuine climb-high exposure, and it takes you higher than you will sleep at any point on the route, three days before the pass. Our itinerary guide gives the conditions for going: you woke up feeling strong, ate a full breakfast, and have no headache.

Pungyen Gompa, about 4,040 m (13,254 ft). An optional detour on Day 6, the day you walk from Shyala to Samagaun. It lifts your daytime altitude about  500 m above the Samagaun bed, on the day after the largest sleeping gain of the route. Our trip page recommends it for the monastery and the glacier views; from an altitude standpoint, how you slept at Shyala is what should decide it.

Photo: Trekkers resting at Pungyen Gompa

The 10-Day Short Route: What Changes in the Altitude Profile

Our short Manaslu Circuit Trek covers the same circuit in 10 days, with 9 nights on the trail. It reaches the same highest bed and crosses the same pass, but in fewer steps.

The short route reaches the highest bed two nights sooner. Its two large steps, +900 m and +930 m, are close to double the CDC's 500 m figure, and both come as single nights where the standard route splits them across two. That is the trade for saving two days. It does not make the short route wrong, but it does make it better suited to people who already know how they respond above 3,500 m. If you have never slept that high, the 12-day schedule gives your body two more nights of smaller steps.

The short route also lists slightly different heights for a few villages (Samdo at 3,860 m and Bhimthang at 3,720 m, against 3,875 m and 3,728 m on the 12-day page). The differences are within what GPS and map sources disagree on, and none changes the comparison above.

Where the Altitude Asks the Most of You

If the sleeping-altitude table tells you anything about where to pay attention, it is these points:

1. Night 5, Shyala (3,500 m). The first bed at 3,000 m or higher, reached by the largest step on the route.
2. Day 7 if you choose Base Camp. A daytime high of 4,800 m, 1,270 m above your bed.
3. Night 9, Dharamsala (4,460 m). The highest bed, the only night above 4,000 m, and the last night before the pass.
4. Day 10, Larkya La (5,106 m). The highest point, reached at the end of a long climb from Dharamsala.

After that the profile eases quickly. If symptoms appear, the symptom list, the medication question, descent decisions and evacuation are all covered in the altitude sickness guide. It is also worth checking that your insurance lists a maximum trekking altitude above 5,106 m and covers helicopter evacuation; the insurance and evacuation guide explains what to look for.

Why You Will See Different Altitude Numbers for the Same Place

Altitude figures in the Himalaya are less fixed than they look. The numbers in this article are the ones on our current trip page. When you check them against other sources, these are the differences you will run into.

Larkya La: 5,106 m or 5,160 m. We use 5,106 m (16,752 ft). The figure 5,160 m (16,929 ft) appears on many operator sites and looks like the same digits transposed. Even reference pages sometimes carry both. The 54 m gap would not change how the day feels, but the pass has one height, and 5,106 m is the one we use.

Where the walk starts. Machha Khola sits at the end of the road leg, and published heights for it run from about 869 m to 930 m depending on the source. We use 890 m. Older guides start the walk at Soti Khola, around 710 m, because the road used to end there. The road now goes further, which is why the first night on our itinerary is at Machha Khola.

Village heights from different devices. GPS watches, phone apps, printed maps and lodge signboards disagree by a few tens of meters, and a village is a spread of buildings along a trail, not a single point. Treat every village figure as a planning number. The pattern across the nights matters far more than the last digit.

Feet. Conversions use 1 m = 3.28084 ft, rounded to the nearest foot. That gives 14,633 ft for 4,460 m. Some pages truncate instead and show 14,632 ft.

Trek the Tsum Valley with Manaslu Circuit Trek

Into the Hidden Valley of Tsum and Around Manaslu.

View Trip

Does the Altitude Change With the Season?

The elevations do not. Dharamsala is 4,460 m in April and in October. What changes is how cold the high beds are and how much snow lies on the approach to the pass, which affects pass-day timing more than it affects altitude. Temperatures and conditions by month are in our Manaslu Circuit weather guide, and the winter picture is in Manaslu Circuit in winter.

How to Read Any Manaslu Itinerary, Ours or Anyone Else's

A day-by-day plan with only the day's high point listed hides most of what matters. Ask for the sleeping altitude of every night, then check these five things:

1. What is the step each night? Look at the change from the night before, not just the place names.
2. Is there a step above about 500 m once you are above 3,000 m, and what follows it? A big step followed by a small one is easier on the body than two big ones in a row.
3. How many rest nights come before the highest bed, and where are they? On our 12-day route there is one, at Samagaun.
4. Where do you sleep before the pass, and how far below it? On ours, Dharamsala at 4,460 m, 646 m below Larkya La.
5. What is the plan if someone is unwell on the morning of the pass? Who decides, and what are the options?

If an operator cannot give you the sleeping altitude for every night, that is worth knowing before you pay a deposit.

Places Nepal's Manaslu Altitude Structure, Summarized

• Four nights below 3,000 m, building from 890 m to 2,630 m, before the first night at 3,500 m.
• The steepest stretch is Nights 4 and 5 (+770 m, then +870 m), and Night 5 is followed by a night of only +30 m.
• One rest night at Samagaun (3,530 m), with a choice between Birendra Tal (3,450 m) and Manaslu Base Camp (4,800 m).
• The final 930 m of sleeping gain is split across Samdo (+345 m) and Dharamsala (+585 m).
• The pass is a daytime crossing from 4,460 m up to 5,106 m and down to 3,728 m. No night is spent above 4,460 m.
• No itinerary can remove altitude risk. Acclimatization reduces it; it does not eliminate it.

Manaslu Circuit Trek With Places Nepal

Our 12-day Manaslu Circuit Trek follows the sleeping profile in this article. Current departure dates, group pricing, the solo-joining price and the full list of inclusions are on the trip page, so check there for the latest rather than relying on any figure repeated elsewhere. The 10-day short Manaslu Circuit suits trekkers who accept the larger steps described above.

For the overall route and planning, the Manaslu Circuit Trek guide is the place to start.

Customizing the Altitude Profile on a Private Trip

If the standard build-up does not suit you, a private trip can change the departure date, the pace and the number of acclimatization days. Two options are worth asking about on this route:

• A second night at Samdo (3,875 m) before the final step to Dharamsala.
• Splitting the Namrung-to-Shyala day with a night at Lho (3,180 m). That would turn the +870 m step into +550 m, followed by +350 m to Samagaun.

When you inquire, tell us the highest place you have slept before and how you felt there. We build around that, not around a standard template. If you want to see how a longer route changes the profile, the Tsum Valley with Manaslu Circuit trip lists its own overnights.

Joining a Fixed Departure

Fixed departures run on the dates published on the trip page. The group price applies to two or more people. If you are traveling alone and want to join a scheduled group, the trip page shows the solo-joining price. Both are on the Manaslu Circuit trip page, along with the dates currently open.

Frequently Asked Questions About Manaslu Circuit Trek Altitude

What is the highest altitude on the Manaslu Circuit Trek? Larkya La, at 5,106 m (16,752 ft). It is a crossing, not a place you sleep. The highest bed is Dharamsala at 4,460 m (14,633 ft). The full crossing is described in the Larkya La pass guide.

What is the highest altitude you sleep at on the Manaslu Circuit? 4,460 m (14,633 ft) at Dharamsala, also called Larkya Phedi. That is Night 9 on the 12-day itinerary and Night 7 on the 10-day one, and it is the only night above 4,000 m on either.

Is Larkya La 5,106 m or 5,160 m? We use 5,106 m (16,752 ft). The 5,160 m figure (16,929 ft) appears on many operator sites and looks like a transposition of the same digits. The 54 m difference is small, but the two numbers should not be mixed within one page.

How high is Samagaun, and how high is Manaslu Base Camp? Samagaun is 3,530 m (11,581 ft). Manaslu Base Camp is 4,800 m (15,748 ft), which is 1,270 m higher. It is an optional round trip from Samagaun on the rest day, not a place you sleep on the standard route.

How many nights do you sleep above 4,000 m? One, at Dharamsala, on both the 12-day and 10-day routes. The 12-day route has six nights at 3,000 m or higher; the 10-day has four.

Is the Manaslu Circuit higher than Everest Base Camp or the Annapurna Circuit? At the top, no. Larkya La (5,106 m) is 258 m below Everest Base Camp (5,364 m), 439 m below Kala Patthar (5,545 m) and 310 m below Thorong La (5,416 m) on the Annapurna Circuit. The highest bed is lower too: Dharamsala at 4,460 m against Gorak Shep at 5,140 m on the Everest route, which is 680 m higher. The two big circuits are compared side by side in Everest Base Camp vs the Manaslu Circuit, and the Annapurna crossing is covered in our Thorong La altitude guide.

How many acclimatization days are there on the Manaslu Circuit? One scheduled rest day: the second night at Samagaun (Night 7). Samdo is an ordinary stage on the standard route. How many days to allow overall is covered in how many days to plan for the Manaslu Circuit.

Can I add an extra acclimatization night? On a private trip, yes. A second night at Samdo is the natural place, before the +585 m step to Dharamsala. Tell us your altitude history when you inquire and we will build the schedule around it.

Does being fit stop altitude sickness on the Manaslu Circuit? No. The CDC states that training and physical fitness do not affect risk. Fitness makes the walking easier, which is why the preparation and training guide is worth reading, but it does not tell you how your body will respond at 3,500 m. What to do if you feel unwell is in the altitude sickness guide.

Is the Manaslu Circuit suitable if I have never trekked above 3,500 m? It can be, but the numbers above are the reason to choose the 12-day schedule and to think about the extra night at Samdo. Who the trek suits is covered in the guide for beginners.

The Bottom Line

The Manaslu Circuit climbs to 5,106 m, but you sleep no higher than 4,460 m, and pass day ends 732 m lower than it begins.What deserves your attention is the shape of the build-up, not the headline height: a steep first stretch (+770 m, then +870 m), five nights in a row at 3,500 m or higher, and a final step of +585 m to the highest bed. The 12-day schedule spreads those steps. The 10-day schedule compresses them. Choose between them by how you have responded at height before, not only by how many days you have.

Whichever route you choose, no itinerary can guarantee you will not be affected by altitude, and the call to slow down or turn back belongs to how you feel that morning.

This article is general trekking information, not medical advice. Altitude affects people unpredictably, whatever their age, fitness or previous experience. Talk to a doctor who knows high-altitude travel before you go, make sure your insurance covers trekking to 5,106 m with helicopter evacuation, and follow your guide's decisions on the trail.