Thrumshing La Pass

Thrumshing La is the high point of Bhutan’s east–west highway, 3,780 m on the boundary between Bumthang and Mongar. You cross it whether you plan to or not on the drive east. Allow twenty to thirty minutes at the top — then give the descent your attention, because that is the part worth coming for.

How high is it, and is it the highest in Bhutan?

3,780 m — and no. Chele La, on the road between Paro and Haa, is higher at 3,988 m, which makes Thrumshing La the second-highest motorable pass in the country.

Worth being exact about, because the round number “4,000 m” and the phrase “the highest pass in Bhutan” travel together through a great deal of published copy — including, until this rewrite, our own. What Thrumshing La genuinely is the highest point of is the Lateral Road, the single highway that runs the length of the country. Chele La is on the road over to Haa, off that highway; this one is on it, and you cross it to reach the whole of eastern Bhutan.

What is at the top?

On a clear day, a very long view — and cold air, at 3,780 m, which finds you within a minute of getting out of the vehicle. Keep a layer within reach rather than in the boot.

What stands at the top, we are not going to describe for you. Every published account of this pass talks about the view and none of them says what you are standing next to — whether there is a chorten, a sign, a shelter or anywhere to get a cup of tea. Ask us; a guide who has crossed it fifty times can answer in a sentence, and we would rather do that than furnish a mountain pass from imagination.

The road here is at its highest point inside Phrumsengla National Park: 905 km², gazetted in 1998, running from 700 m to 4,400 m across four districts, with around eleven thousand people living inside it — so the ground goes on up well above the pass. The park is named after the pass, and was called Thrumshingla National Park until the spelling was brought into line with the Dzongkha.

What is the descent like?

This is the reason to care about the road rather than the pass.

From 3,780 m the highway falls to Lingmethang at roughly 650 m — a drop of about 3,100 m, and there is nothing else like it on a Bhutanese road. You start in fir and hemlock with rhododendron underneath and finish, a couple of hours later, in wet subtropical forest. It is also why the Bumthang–Mongar drive takes seven hours to cover under two hundred kilometres. Nobody goes quickly down that.

Because it crosses so many forest types in one run, the stretch below the pass — Sengor, then Yongkola — is one of the great birding roads in Asia. Our own birding itinerary camps on it for three nights and calls the Yongkola broadleaf forest the birding capital of the world, which is a large claim we did not invent. At the pass, the birds to look for are Blood Pheasant, Red-flanked Bluetail, Spotted Nutcracker and Snow Pigeon; lower down it becomes Rufous-necked Hornbill, Blue-naped Pitta, Collared Treepie and a long list of babblers.

When should you cross it, and can it close?

October to February gives the clearest air, as at every high pass in Bhutan.

But snow closes Thrumshing La some winters, and when it does the country is cut in two — there is no second road east. Commercial and public vehicles are prohibited while it is shut; private ones go at their own risk, and clearing it takes both machinery and people who have to reach it first.

If your itinerary crosses this pass between December and February, ask us rather than assume. It is not a reason to avoid the drive. It is a reason to have a plan.

Why does a children’s book keep coming up here?

Because a great many Bhutanese first learned where this pass is from Dawa: The Story of a Stray Dog in Bhutan, by Kunzang Choden, which is a set text in Bhutanese schools. Dawa crosses five passes in the course of it — Dochula, Pele La, Yotong La, Thrumshing La and Kiki La — and it is at Thrumshing La that he meets the yellow dog who talks him into turning aside for Choekhor.

Mention it at the top of the pass if you have a Bhutanese guide of a certain age in the vehicle. You will get the whole plot.

Where does it sit on the drive east?

Thrumshing La is on the Bumthang–Mongar leg — 198 km and about seven hours — which is the long day of any eastern itinerary. West of the pass is Ura, the highest of Bumthang’s four valleys; east of it are Sengor, the descent, and eventually Mongar.

See things to do in Mongar for what else is on that road.