Records & People

Tilicho Lake Is Called 'The World's Highest Lake.' It Isn't Even Nepal's Highest Anymore

Every brochure calls Tilicho the world’s highest lake. At 4,919m it is spectacular, but the real record sits more than 1,400m higher, inside a…

By Dawa Sherpa · Aug 27, 2026

Trek the Annapurna Circuit and you'll hear it from every guide, teahouse sign and blog post: Tilicho Lake, the world's highest lake. It's one of the most repeated facts in Himalayan trekking — and it's not true. It isn't even Nepal's highest lake anymore. Key…

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What Tilicho really holds

Tilicho is real, and it is genuinely extraordinary: a glacial lake nearly 5,000m up, ringed by ice walls, with an average depth of 85m and a surface so still it mirrors the peaks around it. It even holds a real record — the site of the highest-altitude scuba…

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The lakes that sit higher

The gap matters. Ojos del Salado's summit lake sits 1,471m above Tilicho — more than the entire height of Ben Nevis stacked on top of the difference. Reaching it means climbing the world's highest active volcano, a serious high-altitude mountaineering…

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How the myth took hold

A Russian team — Andrei Andryushin, Denis Bakin and Maxim Gresko — dives in the lake, the highest-altitude scuba dive on record. Tilicho becomes the signature side trip off the Annapurna Circuit, marketed worldwide as the world's highest lake. Mountaineers…

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What this means for trekkers

What this means for you None of this makes Tilicho less worth the walk — if anything, it's the honest version that sells it better. Ojos del Salado's lake needs technical volcano mountaineering to reach; Lhagba Pool sees almost no visitors at all. Tilicho is…

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