Starts
Kathmandu
Highlights of Champadevi Hike
- Beautiful Kathmandu Valley.
- A sacred place for Buddhist and Hindu people.
- Monastery, monks, temples.
- Cultures, Rivers, Forests.
- Langtang, Mt. Ganesh, and beautiful landscape views.
Looking for day hiking trips inside the Kathmandu Valley? Well, Champadevi Hill hiking could be the best choice for you. Champadevi (Devi is goddess Kali) is a pilgrimage site for Hindu and Buddhist people, and especially there will be the festival on the full moon day during Baishakh (lunar calendar) in May.
The Champadevi temple is situated at an altitude of 2285 m above the Dakshinkali Temple and Pharping village. Dakshinkali is one the biggest holy place for Hindu and Buddhist practitioners and thousands of devotees visit this temple every day. At Dakshinkali Temple every Tuesday and Saturday there will be a special worshiping and dozens and hundreds of animals sacrificed. Dakshinkali means the Goddess who lives in the southern part, there are many Kali (goddess) temples around the Kathmandu Valley. There will be a special ceremony during the Dashain Festival.
We will be hiking around the spiritual places along the way; we can see Pharping Monastery and many other monasteries. Especially Pharping cave is one of the biggest and most sacred pilgrimages for Buddhist people, where Padmasambhava had meditated. We will be walking gently uphill from Taudaha before the Dakshinkali temple. We will be walking through the pine forest on a well-developed hiking trail. Our hike will be about 2 hours to get on top of the ride. While walking on Champadevi hiking trails, we will see the Langtang, Mt. Gauri Shanker, Jugal, and Dorge Lakpa mountain ranges. Along the way, we will see dusty and foggy Kathmandu, Patan, and Bungamati Khokana village.
In the meantime, let us share with you that the Champa Devi Temple is not big and it is surrounded by trees. Champadevi hiking can be done all around the year except for the monsoon (June to the end of August). If you don't care about the monsoon, then it's the perfect time to take in some greenery surrounding the hills, but expect some leeches during this time. The spring season is pretty much beautiful with flowers blooming, including rhododendrons.
