8–12 days
Dhorpatan
West of Pokhara: Nepal’s only hunting reserve, an alpine valley under Dhaulagiri. Magar villages, wide patans. A week-plus. Not a teahouse highway.
Dhorpatan is west of the Annapurna trails, in the Dhaulagiri Himal. You drive toward Beni, then Darbang or Burtibang, then walk Magar country — forest, rhododendron, villages — over Jaljala (about 3,430 m) into a wide alpine valley around 2,850 m. The floor is marshy pasture, locally called patan, with Dhaulagiri, Putha, Churen, and Gurja on the skyline. This is Nepal’s only hunting reserve (gazetted 1987, 1,325 km²). Trekkers come for the empty valley, not for a rifle.
It does not look like ABC. There is no lodge strip. Tibetan settlement and Kham Magar villages share the basin. Higher side ridges exist; the usual walk is the valley and the pass.
- Days
- 8–12 days
- Beds
- Community · Homestays and simple lodges in the villages and in Dhorpatan valley. Higher camps may be tents. Do not expect ABC-style teahouses every few hours.
- Start
- Darbang or Burtibang — jeep via Beni, west of Pokhara
- High point
- 3,430 m