Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586. As of 29 September 2026. This is a live situation and I update this page as the position on the ground changes.
The short answer: the road is out, but Mustang is not
The vehicle road up to Jomsom is badly damaged this week, and yet you can still reach Jomsom, Muktinath and Upper Mustang. Those two facts sit together because the way most trekkers actually get into Mustang is not the road at all, it is the twenty-minute flight from Pokhara. If you have a Mustang trip this October and you have seen the headlines about the Beni to Jomsom road, read this before you change anything. If your dates are close, message me on WhatsApp and I will give you the honest position for your exact plan.
What actually happened to the road
After the heavy rain of the last week of September, the Beni to Jomsom to Korala road, which is the main vehicle route up the Kali Gandaki into Mustang, was damaged at 46 separate points along the Myagdi section. Officials have quoted more than a week to fully reopen it, and heavy snow at the Korala pass on the Tibet border closed the top end and disrupted the cross-border trade as well. As of 29 September I am treating this road as closed and under repair. I am not going to give you a firm reopening date, because nobody honestly can yet. What I can tell you is that the authorities are working to have the worst of the country's flood-hit roads passable in time for Dashain, the festival between 11 and 25 October, so that is the rough window to watch. Treat it as a target the engineers are working towards, not a promise.
Why a blocked road does not close Mustang
Mustang sits in the rain shadow behind the main Himalaya, which is why it stays dry when the south side is under monsoon cloud, and no damage to the walking trails of Mustang has been reported in this rain. The road is one way in. It is not the only way in, and for most of our trekkers it was never the main one.
Option one: fly Pokhara to Jomsom
This is the reliable way in while the road is out, and it is how a great many Mustang trips begin in any season. Small fixed-wing aircraft fly the short hop from Pokhara up to Jomsom, usually in the early morning before the valley wind picks up. From Jomsom you are already inside Mustang and standing at the start of the walking routes. Mountain flights depend on the weather, and at the tail of the monsoon a morning can be held for visibility, so we build a buffer day into the plan and we do not cut the timing fine. But the aircraft do not need the damaged road, and that is the point.
Option two: walk the parts that are walkable
Once you are at Jomsom, the trekking routes up to Kagbeni, on to Muktinath, and north into Upper Mustang towards Lo Manthang are reported clear, because they are trails and side valleys rather than the flood-hit road. Muktinath, the temple that draws both Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims, sits above Jomsom and is reached on foot or by the local vehicle tracks within Mustang, which are separate from the Beni to Jomsom road that took the damage. Your guide confirms each local vehicle section on the day rather than assuming it, and where a short stretch needs walking instead of driving, we walk it. This is ordinary Mustang trekking, not a workaround.
Option three: wait for the road, if the road is your trip
If your plan was specifically a road journey rather than a fly-in trek, the honest answer is different. The Upper Mustang motorbike tour and the other Mustang motorbike and mountain-bike trips ride the Kali Gandaki road itself, so they depend on exactly the stretch that is damaged. For those, the sensible move is to hold the dates and watch the Dashain repair window, and I will tell you honestly when the road is genuinely rideable rather than send you up it early. If you are flexible, mid-October onwards is the safer bet for a road-based Mustang trip this year.
The Mustang treks we run, and how each reaches Jomsom
The Upper Mustang trek is our flagship route into the old forbidden kingdom, up to Lo Manthang, Ghar Gompa and the walled capital, and it begins with the Pokhara to Jomsom flight, so it is the least exposed of all our Mustang trips to the road being out. Upper Mustang is a restricted area, which means a licensed guide and a special area permit are compulsory, and the permit runs at fifty US dollars per person per day inside the region. We arrange all of that for you before you leave. Since March 2026 a solo trekker can hold the restricted-area permit too, with a licensed guide, so you do not need to find a second walker to come. For the fuller picture of the gateway town itself, there is our Jomsom and Mustang gateway guide, and for the temple, our Muktinath pilgrimage guide.
What I am telling people booked into Mustang this October
Do not cancel, and do not panic about the road. If your trip flies into Jomsom, which most of ours do, the damaged road barely touches you, and we keep a buffer day for the flight weather. If your trip rides the road, hold your dates and let me watch the repairs for you rather than guess from a desk. Keep your travel insurance sorted, with helicopter evacuation and the real altitude of your route covered, and buy it at home rather than here, because the local policies are often refused by the operators and hospitals at the moment they are needed. And wait for a person who has actually checked the ground before you accept a confident yes or no from anyone, including me. My guides are in these valleys, and trail and road news moves guide to guide faster than any bulletin.
For the wider country-wide picture this week, meaning which regions are trekking normally and which roads are cut, I keep a late-September floods travel update, and for the road-versus-trail logic in general there is is the Annapurna Circuit open?.
Talk to a person on the ground
If you have a Mustang or Muktinath trip this autumn, or you are deciding on dates, message me on WhatsApp and I will tell you the current position for your exact route, whether I would fly you in, and whether I would move a road-based trip. We are a licensed Kathmandu operator, registered in 2016, TAAN member 1586, with our own guides in Mustang.
Every booking helps fund our Nagarjun Learning Center. Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586.
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