Thorong La is sold as the world's highest pass, but Everest has one 119 metres higher

If you have read a trekking brochure about the Annapurna Circuit, you have seen the line: Thorong La, the world's highest trekking pass. I have written it myself in the past. It sounds like a fact, and for the Annapurna Circuit it is one. As a claim about the planet, or even about Nepal, it does not hold up as neatly as the brochures suggest.

What is actually true

Wikipedia describes Thorong La as the highest point on the Annapurna Circuit, and it puts the pass at 5,416 metres in the Damodar Himal. It does not say the pass is the highest anywhere. Some operator pages go further and call it the world's highest walkable pass. That is a marketing line, not a surveyed ranking, and it falls over as soon as you look east to the Everest region.

The Everest Three Passes trek crosses Renjo La, Cho La and Kongma La. Operators list them at 5,360, 5,420 and 5,535 metres. Kongma La is therefore about 119 metres higher than Thorong La, and Cho La is listed a few metres above it too. Cho La's four-metre lead sits inside the margin where maps and GPS readings disagree, so I would call it level rather than higher. Kongma La is a clear difference of more than a hundred metres.

One honest caveat: I have not audited every pass on Earth, and I will not crown a new champion. Ladakh, Tibet and the Andes have their own high crossings. What I can say from the sources is narrower and safer. Inside Nepal, Thorong La is not the highest trekking pass, and 'world's highest' should be read as a slogan.

Why Thorong La still deserves its reputation

Height is not the whole story. Thorong La is the single crossing that most Annapurna Circuit trekkers must make in one push, and its danger comes from how quickly you climb to it. Wikipedia notes that most people cross east to west, from Manang to Muktinath, because the reverse direction means climbing at least 1,230 metres in a single day without proper acclimatisation. In October 2014 a cyclone-driven blizzard killed dozens of people near the pass, a reminder that a pass this high can turn dangerous in hours. Operators recommend starting around 3:30 to 4:00 in the morning to be across before the afternoon winds, and to expect roughly 7 to 8 hours up and 2 to 3 hours down toward Muktinath.

Whichever you choose, the rule is the same: sleep low, go up slowly, and treat the pass as the last day of a plan rather than the goal itself. Nobody has ever regretted an extra acclimatisation day.

Sources: Wikipedia, Thorong La; trekking operator pages for the Everest Three Passes elevations and Thorong La crossing times.

Cover photo: Vaupk12 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).