The Hill of a Hundred Hills

Two days on a grass ridge east of Kathmandu: a stone staircase, a sunset that never arrived, and everything at once the next morning at 06:28.

By Ujjwol Kayastha · October 11–12, 2025 · Dolakha

Sailung means, more or less, a hundred hills, and the name is not doing anything clever. You come up onto a long grass ridge four hours east of Kathmandu and the land in every direction is hills behind hills behind hills, green going to blue going to nothing, and along the north edge of all that the Himalaya sits in a line like something drawn on. We climbed the stone staircase for the sunset and got cloud instead, thick enough to stand in. So we went back up at half past five the next morning in the dark, and the mountain gave us everything at once.

metres at the gompa: 3,167
days: 2
out in the dark: 05:30
dogs, uninvited: 2

The road, and then the stairs (Day 01 · Oct 11)

KATHMANDU → DOLALGHAT → THE HILL ROAD → SHAILUNG → THE GOMPA

12:06 out of the valley
12:40 the Sun Koshi
13:29 2,527 m, and climbing
14:55 Shailung
16:27 the signboard
17:22 the gompa
18:37 the lodge

East out of the valley and down, which is the wrong direction for a hill and always feels like it. By half past twelve we are at the Sun Koshi, six hundred and ninety-seven metres, the river running the flat green of a bottle past a strip of riverside town, and then over a steel truss bridge and the road starts going up and does not stop for an hour.

A wide green river past a riverside settlement with forested hills — The Sun Koshi, the colour of a bottle · 12:30

A steel truss bridge over a river seen down its length — A green truss bridge, and the road east · 12:40

At 13:29 the phone says 2,527 metres and we have not walked a step. That is the bargain at Shailung and it is worth saying out loud: the road does almost all of the climbing. By five to three we are out of the jeep at 2,826 metres with an afternoon in hand and the top somewhere above us in the cloud.

The way up is a staircase. Not a path with some steps in it; an actual flight of grey stone, hundreds of them, running straight up through the rhododendron with a low wall on each side, and it is the sort of thing that looks generous for the first fifty and then stops being generous. Somewhere in the middle of it there is a signboard on a post with prayer flags tied to it: शैलुङ one way, महादेव गुफा the other.

A long flight of grey stone steps climbing through trees — The stairs, which do not stop · 16:05

A stone staircase climbing away between a low wall and a mossy bank — Still going, and this is halfway · 16:08

Yellow direction signs reading Shailung and Mahadev Gufa with prayer flags — One way, or the other · 16:27

Out of the trees onto the ridge at half past four and the cloud is already there, coming up the south side in a slow wall, and by the time we reach the gompa at twenty past five the view is about nine metres in every direction. Three thousand one hundred and sixty-seven metres on the phone. A white monastery, a bronze Guru Rinpoche on a painted plinth, and several thousand prayer flags all going the same way in the wind, and beyond them nothing at all.

A grassy ridge disappearing into thick white cloud — The cloud, arriving early · 16:32

A white monastery on a rocky summit wreathed in prayer flags and mist — The gompa at 3,167, in a cloud · 17:16

The cloud taking the last of it · 17:29

We climbed a staircase for an hour to look at the inside of a cloud, and then somebody made tea, and it was fine. The gompa, 17:36

A bronze Guru Rinpoche statue among prayer flags in mist — Out in the weather · 17:21

Prayer flags and a chorten in heavy grey cloud at dusk — No sunset, then · 17:37

Steel cups, on a summit, in the fog · 17:36

Down to the lodge in the last of the light, 2,825 metres, and the plan is agreed over dinner without much discussion: half past five, in the dark, back up. If it is cloud again it is cloud again.

A hundred hills at first light (Day 02 · Oct 12)

SHAILUNG → THE RIDGE → MAHADEV GUFA → THE ROAD DOWN

05:30 out in the dark
05:51 the cloud sea
06:28 3,161 m
06:39 the range
07:41 the hundred hills
09:02 the lodge
09:37 the road down

Half past five and the ridge is a shape rather than a place. By ten to six there is enough light to see what happened overnight: the cloud that took our sunset has gone down into the valleys and lain flat there, and we are above it, walking a dirt trail along the top of a grass wave with a white sea on both sides and the sky going from black to green to orange behind the Himalaya.

A dirt trail along a ridge at first light with cloud filling the valleys — Ten to six, and a sea of cloud · 05:51

Three horses are already up there, grazing the crest beside a flag pole, entirely unbothered by any of it. And somewhere on the way up a dog attaches itself to us, black and tan with a curled tail, and then a second one, and neither of them leaves for the next two hours.

Three horses grazing on a ridge crest beside a prayer flag pole — Up before us · 06:11

A black and tan dog walking up a grassy slope in golden light — This one decided to come along · 06:19

At 06:28 the phone says 3,161 metres, six short of last night, and it does not matter, because this time you can see. The whole northern horizon is snow, one continuous line of it above a hundred kilometres of blue ridge, and the grass under your boots has gone the colour of a lion. Yesterday we were standing in exactly this spot looking at nine metres of fog.

The ridge, the chorten, and all of it coming out · 06:37

A line of snow peaks across the horizon above blue ridges — And there it is, all of it · 06:39

A white stupa and tin-roofed shelter with horses grazing — The chorten, and the horses again · 06:46

Yesterday we stood in exactly this spot and looked at nine metres of fog. The ridge, 06:28

Two dogs on a grass ridge with snow peaks across the horizon — Two of them, and the whole Himalaya · 06:53

A person sitting on the grass with a dog beside them, mountains behind — Sat down for a bit. So did he · 06:56

The walk back is the best part and nobody tells you that. Going up you are looking at your feet; coming down at seven in the morning you are looking at the thing the place is named for. Hills behind hills behind hills, all of them grass, all of them curved, folding away south and west until the last of them is the same colour as the sky.

Two small figures on a golden grass ridge with the Himalaya behind — Two people, for scale · 07:08

A dirt trail over grass hills with snow peaks on the horizon — No reason to hurry · 07:34

Rolling green grass hills folding away in layers under a blue sky — Doing what they are named for · 07:41

There is a signpost on the way back to a Mahadev cave we do not go to, and a round stone pavilion built for exactly the weather we had yesterday, and then the lodges come into view below the ridge with their red and blue roofs and the mountain still sitting behind them at eight in the morning like it has nothing else on.

A yellow signpost reading Mahadev Gufa beside a trail — Which we did not go to · 07:55

A circular open pavilion with a conical roof on a bare hilltop — Built for yesterday · 08:06

Red and blue roofed lodges below a ridge with snow peaks beyond — The lodges, and what they are pointed at · 08:21

A menu board for the Sailung Inn Hotel listing thukpa, momo and khaja sets — Breakfast is thukpa or it is nothing · 09:02

Off the ridge by half past nine, past stone houses with the last of the mountain over their roofs, and back down the road we came up. Twenty-one hours on the hill, most of one of them spent inside a cloud, and I would do the whole thing again tomorrow for the forty minutes after 06:28.

Stone and timber houses along a ridge track with snow mountains beyond — The last of the mountain · 09:35

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