Photo: Sunuwargr · CC BY-SA 4.0National Parks / Mountain / Shey Phoksundo
Est. 1984 · Nepal's largest national park
Nepal's largest and only trans-Himalayan national park — a remote realm of turquoise lakes, snow leopards and the ancient Buddhist culture of Dolpo.
Shey Phoksundo is the largest national park in Nepal — and its only trans-Himalayan one — sprawling across 3,555 km² of the remote Dolpa and Mugu districts in the country's north-west.
Established in 1984, the park ranges in elevation from about 2,130 m near Ankhe to 6,885 m at the summit of Kanjiroba Himal. Much of it lies in the rain shadow of the main Himalayan range, on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau — a stark, arid trans-Himalayan landscape unlike anywhere else in Nepal's park system. The Langu river drains the high Dolpo plateau to the north-east. The park headquarters are at Palam in Dolpa, and a buffer zone covering 1,349 km² was declared in 1998.
Photo: Sunuwargr · CC BY-SA 4.0The Jewel of Dolpo
The park's defining feature is Phoksundo Lake, a pristine alpine lake at 3,612 m, famed for turquoise-blue waters that shift colour through the day. At up to 145 m it is Nepal's deepest lake, and its outlet forms one of Nepal's highest waterfalls at 167 m. The lake was declared a Ramsar wetland of international importance in 2007 and is ringed by Buddhist monasteries.
Wildlife
A 2019–2022 study found around 90 snow leopards here — a density of 2.21 per 100 km², among the highest recorded.
Photo: Tambako The Jaguar (edit by Niabot) · CC BY-SA 2.0The park is one of the world's great snow leopard strongholds.
Vulnerable
Photo: stli_ · CC BY 4.0The bharal, or blue sheep, is the snow leopard's main prey across the high slopes.
Photo: Gurung Pratap · CC BY-SA 4.0Among 32 mammal species, alongside grey wolf, jackal and Himalayan black bear.
Photo: Carsten.nebel · CC BY-SA 3.0Flora & Landscape
The southern slopes carry blue pine, fir, birch and rhododendron forest, but north of the Himalayan crest the land turns arid and Tibetan in character — rhododendron, caragana shrub and willow giving way to bare rock and high desert. It is, in essence, a fragment of the Tibetan Plateau within Nepal's borders.
Photo: Sergey Pashko · CC BY 3.0Culture of Dolpo
The Dolpo region is one of the most culturally intact Tibetan Buddhist (and Bon) areas in the Himalaya. The 11th-century Shey Gompa and the centuries-old Thasung monastery near Phoksundo Lake remain living centres of faith. Humans have inhabited this region for thousands of years, and the park was established in part to protect its cultural and religious heritage alongside its ecology.
Visiting
One of Nepal's most remote and demanding trekking regions — and one of its most rewarding.
Solo trekking is permitted as far as Ringmo village and the lake.
The inner Dolpo areas are restricted — group trekking with licensed guides and special permits only.
Requires both a park permit and a Dolpo restricted-area permit.
Reference
From the deserts of Dolpo to the grasslands of the Terai.