Ama Dablam Base Camp Trek: The Complete Guide, Route, Altitude and Cost

The Ama Dablam Base Camp trek is an 8-day walk from Kathmandu, through Lukla, Namche Bazaar and Tengboche, to a grassy base camp at 4,570 metres directly under one of the most recognisable mountains in the Khumbu. You do not climb Ama Dablam. You walk to its foot, on ordinary trekking trails, with a licensed guide. On our package page it is graded Moderate, it costs from US$1,179 per person for one trekker, and the highest point is about 800 metres lower than Everest Base Camp. This guide gives you the route day by day, the real altitude profile, the cost by tier, the best months and the things I would want to know before booking.

What is the Ama Dablam Base Camp trek, and is it a climb?

It is a trek, not a climb. Ama Dablam itself is a technical mountain. According to Wikipedia it stands at 6,812 metres and was first climbed on 13 March 1961 by Mike Gill, Barry Bishop, Mike Ward and Wally Romanes, by the Southwest Ridge. Climbing it needs ropes, fixed lines, high camps and real mountaineering skill. Our trek stops at base camp. Nobody on this trip puts on a harness, and you do not need any climbing experience.

Wikipedia gives the name as "mother's charm box" in Sherpa: the long ridges are the mother's arms, and the hanging glacier is the dablam, the double pendant that Sherpa women wear. Once you have seen the glacier hanging from the face, the name makes sense.

Fact	Figure
Length	8 days, Kathmandu to Kathmandu, including both Lukla flights
Highest point	Ama Dablam Base Camp, 4,570 m (14,993 ft), from our package itinerary
Highest sleeping point	Pangboche, 3,985 m (13,074 ft)
Grade on our package page	Moderate
Group size	1 to 20, always private, your group only
Permits	Sagarmatha National Park, Khumbu local fee and TIMS, all included in every tier
Price	From US$1,179 (Budget), US$1,750 (Standard), US$2,999 (Luxury) for one trekker

The full itinerary and live prices are on the Ama Dablam Base Camp Trek (8 days) page. If anything in this blog differs from that page, the page and our confirmation to you win.

What does the trek look like day by day?

The first four days follow the Everest Base Camp trail you may already know from our Everest Base Camp day-by-day guide. The difference starts at Pangboche, where you leave the main path and head for the mountain instead of for Dingboche.

Day	Route	Sleep	Walking time
1	Fly Kathmandu to Lukla (2,860 m), walk to Phakding	Phakding, 2,610 m	About 3 hours
2	Phakding to Namche Bazaar	Namche, 3,440 m	6 to 7 hours
3	Acclimatisation day, hike to the Everest View Hotel (3,880 m) and back	Namche, 3,440 m	2 to 3 hours
4	Namche to Tengboche	Tengboche, 3,860 m	5 to 6 hours
5	Tengboche to Pangboche	Pangboche, 3,985 m	A short day, about 3 hours by our itinerary text
6	Pangboche to Ama Dablam Base Camp (4,570 m) and back	Pangboche, 3,985 m	About 6 hours
7	Pangboche to Namche Bazaar	Namche, 3,440 m	6 to 7 hours
8	Namche to Lukla, fly to Kathmandu	Kathmandu	5 to 6 hours to Lukla, then the flight

Day 1. The flight is the most dramatic part of the day, and the walk afterwards is deliberately short. You land at Lukla, your guide meets you, and you walk down the Dudh Koshi valley to Phakding. It is a gentle first evening at altitude. In the busy windows the fixed-wing flight leaves from Manthali rather than Kathmandu, which changes your first night, so read the flight section below.

Day 2. This is the first hard day. You cross the river on high suspension bridges, pass the national park entrance at Monjo where your guide deals with the permits, and then climb steeply for the last two hours into Namche Bazaar. Namche is a proper town with bakeries, gear shops and a Saturday market. Our Namche Bazaar guide tells you what to do with the evening.

Day 3. A rest day in the medical sense, not the lazy one. You climb to the Everest View Hotel at 3,880 metres, look straight across at Ama Dablam, then come back down to sleep at 3,440 metres. If you want to know why the day matters, read what happens on an acclimatisation day. You can add Khumjung on the way back, which is covered in our Khumjung village guide.

Day 4. The trail contours above the Dudh Koshi with Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam in view, drops to the river, then climbs through forest to Tengboche. Wikipedia says the monastery was established at its present site in 1916, destroyed by the 1934 earthquake, and destroyed again by fire in 1989, and rebuilt each time. Ama Dablam stands directly behind it. Our Tengboche guide has the detail.

Day 5. A short walk to Pangboche, so you arrive with the afternoon free. Wikipedia describes it as about three kilometres north-east of Tengboche, in the Imja Khola valley, and as a base for climbing Ama Dablam and for trekking. This is the village most Everest trekkers walk straight through. Staying a night, as you do on this trip, is the point. Our Pangboche guide covers the village and its monastery.

Day 6. The big day, and a long one. You leave Pangboche, leave the main Everest path behind and follow the trail towards the mountain, climbing to base camp at 4,570 metres. Our itinerary describes a quieter valley, with the peak towering above you. In the climbing seasons you may meet expedition teams. You eat, look, take your photographs and walk back down to sleep at Pangboche. The sleeping altitude does not change, which matters for the altitude section below.

Day 7. A long descent to Namche through Tengboche. It covers in one day what took two on the way up, and the last hour back up to Namche is tiring on tired legs.

Day 8. Namche to Lukla, then the flight to Kathmandu. The walk is mostly downhill, but on our Everest Base Camp itinerary the same stretch takes 5 to 6 hours and 21 kilometres, so plan for that, not for a stroll.

How high do you go, and how real is the altitude risk?

The route peaks at 4,570 metres and the highest night is 3,985 metres. That is a lot gentler than Everest Base Camp, where the same trail goes on to Gorak Shep at 5,164 metres and Kala Patthar at 5,545 metres. It is still altitude, and I want to be straight about that.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Yellow Book says any unacclimatised traveller going to a sleeping altitude of 2,450 metres or more, and sometimes lower, is at risk of altitude illness. Its rule above 3,000 metres is to raise your sleeping altitude by no more than 500 metres a day and to plan an extra day of acclimatisation for every additional 1,000 metres. It also says that even on standard acclimatisation schedules the prevalence of altitude illness on the Everest trails can approach 30 per cent at higher elevations. Our trek stays well below the Everest Base Camp heights, but nothing on it is risk free.

Night	Sleeping altitude	Change from the night before
Phakding	2,610 m	Starts below 3,000 m
Namche (2 nights)	3,440 m	+830 m, then a rest day
Tengboche	3,860 m	+420 m
Pangboche (2 nights)	3,985 m	+125 m, then a day trip to 4,570 m
Namche	3,440 m	Down 545 m

Two honest points from that table. First, the jump from Phakding to Namche is 830 metres, which is more than the CDC guide figure. It is the same jump every Everest trekker makes, and the rest day at Namche is there because of it. Second, the day to base camp is a climb high, sleep low day: you go up 585 metres from Pangboche and come back down to sleep, which is the pattern that acclimatisation advice favours. What the plan does not have is a lot of slack. It has one rest day, and if you arrive unwell or a flight is late, the shape of the trip can change.

Your guide checks how you slept, your appetite, headaches and your oxygen reading with a pulse oximeter every day. Mild symptoms such as a headache, poor appetite, dizziness or nausea are the early warning. The CDC says that if symptoms worsen at the same altitude despite treatment, descent is mandatory, and that people improve quickly with a descent of about 300 metres. We follow that. Our altitude sickness guide and our piece on acclimatisation go further. I ask every trekker to carry travel insurance that covers helicopter evacuation, bought in your home country before you fly; our insurance guide explains what to check.

How hard is the Ama Dablam Base Camp trek?

Our package page grades it Moderate, and I agree, with a caveat. The daily walking times are 5 to 7 hours on the longer days, on well-used Khumbu trails, with no technical sections. The two days that feel hardest are Day 2, the steep final climb into Namche, and Day 6, which is the highest and longest day of the trip. The knees tend to complain on Days 7 and 8, when you descend most of the way back to Lukla in two days.

You need to be able to walk five or six hours a day on consecutive days, with a small daypack, and recover enough to do it again. Hill walking with a pack, stairs and long walks in the weeks before are the best preparation. If you want a sense of how this compares to the classic route, our Everest Base Camp difficulty guide describes the longer, higher version.

It is a good choice for a fit first-time Himalayan trekker who wants a shorter trip, and for returning trekkers who have done Everest Base Camp and want a different view of the same valley. It is not a trip for someone who has never walked uphill for hours.

When is the best time to go?

The two main windows are the same as for Everest Base Camp: spring, March to May, and autumn, September to November. Our package page gives those two seasons, and our month-by-month Everest guide and weather guide give the detail. Our trek price is the same whatever month you book.

Month	What to expect
January and February	Clear and very cold. Our Everest guide says some high lodges shut in mid-winter, so I would confirm the Pangboche lodges before fixing a winter date. Very quiet.
March	Cold early, warming. Clear. The spring season starts building.
April	Warm days, rhododendrons in bloom on the lower forest, strong views. Busy.
May	The warmest trekking month, hazier afternoons as the monsoon approaches.
June to mid-September	Monsoon. Cloud, rain, leeches lower down and unreliable flights. I would not book it.
October	The most reliable weather of the year, and the busiest trail. Book flights and hotels early. A late October cyclone tail has grounded Lukla flights in some recent autumns.
November	Clear and crisp, colder nights, quieter as the month goes on. The first half is the sweet spot for skies and crowds.
December	Cold, clear and quiet. Early December is a good choice.

Wikipedia says the snow peaks around Tengboche, Ama Dablam among them, make a particularly fine picture in winter, and our Tengboche guide says the Mani Rimdu festival is held over the autumn full moon, in October or November. I do not give festival dates here because they move each year. If a festival matters to you, ask me and I will check before you book.

Dashain, Nepal's biggest holiday, affects roads and offices in October. Our Dashain 2026 guide has the dates for this year.

How do you get to Lukla, and what if the flight is delayed?

Every tier flies to Lukla and back, apart from Luxury, which uses a helicopter between Kathmandu and Lukla and back. Lukla is at 2,860 metres. In the busy windows, roughly 15 March to 15 May and 25 September to 30 November by our working dates, the fixed-wing flights leave from Manthali in Ramechhap district instead of Kathmandu. The dates are set by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, not by us, and I could not find a published notice for 2026.

On those days your guide collects you from your Kathmandu hotel between midnight and 2 am, you drive four to five hours to Manthali, and the flight to Lukla takes about 20 minutes. Our Manthali airport guide describes the morning in detail. On Budget, the ground transport to Manthali and back to Kathmandu is included if the flight is rescheduled. On Standard, the package includes a shared tourist vehicle to Manthali. The Luxury helicopter flies direct from Kathmandu.

Weather delays are normal, not rare. Our delay rule is simple: if the airline cancels or delays your flight, the extra nights in Lukla or Kathmandu and any helicopter are paid by you, because we cannot be liable for the weather or the airline. What we can do is move the value of your fixed-wing ticket to a helicopter seat, less the airline cancellation charge, bank charges and tax. As a guide, a shared helicopter seat costs about US$640 per person from Kathmandu to Lukla and about US$710 from Lukla to Kathmandu, including government tax, bank charges and the fuel supplement. Those are the figures in our domestic flights guide, which also has the fixed-wing fares.

My advice is to keep a spare day at the end of the trip before your international flight home. An 8-day trek has no built-in buffer, so the spare day has to come from your own plan.

How much does it cost?

These are the live prices on our package page, per person, in US dollars. The price is the same for a private group and a group travelling together, and the discount comes only from group size.

Group size	Budget	Standard	Luxury
1 trekker	US$1,179	US$1,750	US$2,999
2 to 4	US$1,099	US$1,599	US$2,799
5 to 8	US$999	US$1,449	US$2,699
9 to 12	US$950	US$1,399	US$2,599
13 to 20	US$899	US$1,249	US$2,499

What every tier includes: airport pick-up and drop-off, the Lukla flights (a round-trip helicopter on Luxury), an English-speaking guide trained under Nepal government rules, teahouse accommodation, the Sagarmatha National Park entry, the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality fee and the TIMS card, government taxes, a first-aid kit with an oximeter, rescue arrangement (paid for by your travel insurance), a company T-shirt and cap, a farewell meal and a certificate of achievement. On the Everest trails those three permits come to NPR 8,000 per person, about US$52, and our permits guide shows where each figure comes from. For this trek the permit fees are part of the price, so you do not pay them on top.

What is not included: your international flights, your Nepal visa, travel insurance, tips, drinks and personal items, and Kathmandu hotels. Kathmandu hotels are not in any trek tier; we quote them separately, and our family homestay is US$15 per person per night. Budget does not include meals on the trail at all, so budget for those yourself and expect to pay mountain prices.

Extra costs to plan for: an extra porter, if you want one, is US$25 a day plus 13 per cent VAT and the 3.5 per cent bank charge, so never read US$25 as the final figure. Paying the balance by card carries 3.5 per cent; cash in Kathmandu carries none. Foreign clients pay in US dollars, not rupees.

How booking works. The deposit is 10 per cent, and you pay the rest in Kathmandu. The deposit is not refundable if you cancel, but you can reschedule free of charge to any date within a year if you tell us at least 72 hours ahead. If we cannot run the trip ourselves, we refund what you paid less taxes, bank and card charges and any money already spent, such as permits or flights.

Which tier should you choose?

The three tiers differ in who carries your bag, what you eat, where you sleep and how you reach Lukla.

	Budget	Standard	Luxury
Porter	None, you carry your own bag	One porter per two trekkers	One dedicated porter per trekker
Meals on the trail	Not included	All meals	All meals, plus fruit and nuts and unlimited soft drinks
Rooms	Shared	Private	Private deluxe, ensuite where available
Lukla transport	Fixed-wing	Fixed-wing	Round-trip helicopter

If you travel alone, Luxury still gives you your own porter. On Standard there is no porter, because porters are shared one per two trekkers, so your guide carries up to 10 kg of your kit instead. On Budget there is never a porter. Our solo trekking guide explains how this works on the Everest side, and the same rules apply here.

We always trek with a licensed guide. That is how I would want a trip on this trail to run whatever the rules say, and it is the reason the guide checks your oxygen and appetite every morning. If you are weighing guides against going without, our guide article sets out the 2026 position.

How does it compare with Everest Base Camp?

	Ama Dablam Base Camp	Everest Base Camp (12 days)
Days	8	12
Highest point	4,570 m	Base Camp 5,364 m, Kala Patthar 5,545 m
Highest sleeping altitude	3,985 m (Pangboche)	5,164 m (Gorak Shep)
From	US$1,179	US$1,399
Where you end up	Directly below one mountain	At the foot of the world's highest mountain, in a tent city

The honest trade-off is this. Everest Base Camp is the famous goal, with the sign, the glacier and the sense of arrival. Ama Dablam Base Camp is closer to a single peak, shorter, lower and, in our guides' experience, quieter once you leave the main path at Pangboche. I do not have a trail count to give you for that; it is what our guides tell me. If you have done the Everest route before, or you want fewer days and less altitude, this is a good choice. If your heart is set on standing at Everest Base Camp, it is not a substitute. Our Everest Base Camp versus Gokyo comparison helps if you are choosing between several Khumbu options.

What will you not get, and what should you pack?

It helps to know the downsides before you book.

• You will not stand on the Ama Dablam summit, and base camp is a day trip from Pangboche, not a night out on the moraine.
• You get one rest day. If the Lukla flight slips, the schedule has little slack, so add buffer days at the end.
• Day 6 is long, and you are at 4,570 metres at the turning point. Go slowly, and tell your guide the moment something feels wrong.
• There is no mobile network at altitude. We arrange a SIM card for you in Kathmandu, with limited data on Standard and unlimited data on Luxury, but do not plan to work from the trail.
• Kathmandu hotels and international flights are on top of the price.

What should you pack and prepare?

Pack for cold mornings and strong sun: a warm base layer, a fleece, a windproof shell, gloves, a hat, broken-in boots, sunglasses and a headlamp. If you do not own a down jacket or sleeping bag, tell us at your briefing and we provide one for the trek. On Standard and Luxury we also give you a duffel bag, and on Standard your porter carries 10 kg of your gear in it, and you carry a small daypack with water, snacks, camera and documents. We store excess luggage free at our Kathmandu store while you are on the trail.

Start training six to eight weeks before: walk uphill with a loaded pack at least three times a week and add one long day. Learn the symptoms of altitude sickness before you leave, and do not take a risk with them on the trail.

The questions people ask me

Do I need climbing experience? No. This is a walking trek on regular Khumbu trails, and no ropes or mountaineering skills are needed.

Is it safe for a first-time trekker? Yes, if you are fit and walk steadily. It is graded Moderate and tops out at 4,570 metres. Altitude illness can still happen at any height above about 2,450 metres, so nobody should treat it as risk free.

Can I add Everest Base Camp to it? Not on the 8-day plan. They use the same trail up to Pangboche, but the Everest trek takes 12 days with a rest day at Dingboche. Ask me if you want a custom trip that does both.

Is it a private trek? Yes. We run it for your group only, on dates you choose, even for one person. Fixed group departures are also possible if you prefer company.

Do I need a visa? Yes. Our package pages quote US$30 for 15 days, US$50 for 30 days and US$125 for 90 days on arrival, paid in US dollars, and a visa from an embassy before you travel is also possible.

Can I trek it in winter? You can, in December to February, with clear skies and a quiet trail, but the nights are severe and some of the higher lodges close. Ask before you commit.

If you want the numbers run for your dates, message me on WhatsApp at +977 9810351300 or email [email protected]. I will give you the real figure, including the parts that are not in our favour.

About The Everest Holiday

We are a family company in Kathmandu, three generations of family guides, registered in 2016 and a member of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal, number 1586. When you book with us you deal with the family, not a call centre, and the guide who meets you at the airport works for the same people who answered your first message.

Every booking helps fund our Nagarjun Learning Center. We fully run the centre at Saldum, where 70 children learn with a teacher I pay for personally, and we have helped build and still support other community learning centres. It is where a real part of what you pay ends up.

Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation family guide. TAAN Member #1586.