A village beside a glacial lake
Gokyo is a small village at 4,790 m on the shore of Dudh Pokhari, one of six Gokyo Lakes fed by meltwater from the Ngozumpa Glacier, Nepal's largest glacier, and the main overnight stop for trekkers on the Gokyo Lakes or Three High Passes itineraries.
The six lakes and their religious significance
The Gokyo Lakes rise in elevation from roughly 4,600 m to over 5,000 m, with the third and largest, Dudh Pokhari, forming the village's natural centre; Dudh means milk in Nepali, a reference to the pale colour the glacial silt gives the water, the same root as the Dudh Koshi river the trail follows for days before reaching Gokyo. Both Hindus and Buddhists treat the lakes as sacred. Hindu tradition holds that Dudh Pokhari is home to Nag, the serpent deity, and every year during Janai Purnima, the full-moon festival in the Nepali month of Shrawan (July-August), Hindu pilgrims from Nepal and India climb to Gokyo to bathe in its water as a purification ritual. Buddhist prayer flags and small chortens line the shore, reflecting the same reverence from the valley's Sherpa residents.
The Ngozumpa Glacier
Unlike the Khumbu Glacier on the classic Base Camp route, the Gokyo valley runs alongside the Ngozumpa, Nepal's largest glacier by length, a debris-covered ice river the trail crosses directly rather than merely viewing from a distance.
Gokyo Ri versus the village itself
Gokyo Ri, the 5,357 m summit above the village, is a separate climbing objective covered in depth on its own trek profile; this page covers the village and lakes at its base, the overnight stop most trekkers use before or after that climb.
How to reach it
Gokyo is reached only via the Gokyo Lakes 17-Day itinerary or the Three High Passes 20-Day itinerary, both of which branch away from the classic Base Camp route above Namche Bazaar rather than following the standard corridor toward Tengboche and Dingboche.