Pathibhara Cable Car vs the Old Trail: Why Locals Are Fighting for Mukkumlung in 2026
What it's actually like to walk to Pathibhara right now. What the cable car has done to the mountain. And what the Limbu community wants the rest of us to know before we book the next jeep.
[IMAGE: Pathibhara temple at dawn with prayer flags. Alt: "Pathibhara temple at sunrise, Taplejung"]I was somewhere on the last ridge before the temple when an old Limbu woman ahead of me dropped to her knees and started crying. Not loudly. The kind of crying you do when your legs have finally carried you to a place you have been trying to reach for thirty years. The bell at the temple rang. Mist was moving across the stone steps in slow, soft strips. She touched her forehead to the ground and said something in her language that I did not catch, and I stood there with my hands in my pockets feeling like I had walked into a room I was not invited into.
That was Pathibhara, three years ago. I have been back twice since. Both times I left with the same thought: this mountain does not feel like a tourist site. It feels like something older than the country I'm standing in.
So when I read, in early 2025, that police had opened fire on people protesting a cable car being built up to the temple, my stomach went cold. And when I went back to Taplejung last winter and saw the towers, the cleared forest, the silent old men sitting in tea shops with the news on the radio, I understood I was going to have to write this piece eventually.
This is a guide for anyone planning to visit Pathibhara in 2026. Cost, route, timing, all of it. But it is also a story about what is happening to this mountain right now, and why the question cable car or old trail? is not really a question about transport.
Pathibhara and Mukkumlung are the same ridge. They are not the same story.
If you are Hindu, this place is Pathibhara Devi. A wish-fulfilling form of the goddess Bhagwati. One of the strongest Shakti sites in eastern Nepal. People come with packets of red cloth and coconuts, asking for sons, for visas, for sick mothers to recover. Buses arrive from Birtamod, Itahari, Kathmandu. Some pilgrims sleep on temple floors the night before darshan because they have already given everything they had to the bus fare.
If you are Limbu, the same ridge has a name that is much older: Mukkumlung. It lives in the Mundhum, the oral scripture of the Kirati peoples, which is sung and spoken at every Limbu birth, wedding, and funeral. Mukkumlung is one of the sacred origin places in that scripture. You cannot move it or replace it. The Limbu phrase I have heard most often when people talk about it is "this is our spine."
For generations, both communities prayed on the same ridge without much trouble. The cable car company chose to call its project Pathibhara, not Mukkumlung. That choice, more than the steel and the cables, is what set the fight on fire.
"They are not just cutting trees. They are cutting the name out of our scripture." — A Limbu elder I sat with in Phidim last December.
What walking to Pathibhara actually feels like
You start in Phungling, Taplejung's dusty district capital. Most people take a shared jeep up to Kaflepati or Suketar and start walking from there. Four to six hours of climbing through pine and rhododendron forest, depending on how often you stop and how much weight is in your legs that day.
The trail is mostly stone steps. Old ones. Smoothed down by enough feet that you can sometimes see a curve in them. Prayer flags hang in the trees and have been there long enough to turn the colour of weak tea. You pass small wooden tea shops where a Limbu or Rai woman will hand you a glass of hot milky chiya and refuse your money because you are walking up for the goddess and she does not take payment for that.
The air thins. The temperature drops about ten degrees from where you started. By the time you reach the final stretch your fingers are not working properly and you are walking on something that is not quite willpower. Then the bell rings somewhere above you and you go a little faster without meaning to.
For most pilgrims, this is the prayer. The walk itself. You are supposed to arrive tired. You are supposed to leave something on the trail before the goddess gives you anything in return. That is the contract.
For some people, though, the walk is impossible. Elderly devotees with bad knees. Diabetic mothers. A friend's grandfather, in his eighties, who saved for two years and got as far as Suketar before his heart told him to stop. He cried on the way back down. This is also true. The cable car company has pointed to people like him a lot, and they are right to. But they are not the only people on the ridge.
What's actually being built up there
The Pathibhara cable car is owned by Pathibhara Darshan Cable Car Pvt. Ltd., a company under the IME Group. The IME Group is chaired by Chandra Prasad Dhakal, currently president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The project cost is around USD 22 million. It was first approved by Phungling Municipality back in 2018.
The line is meant to run 2.7 km from Kaflepati to a station just below the temple. The company says a four-to-six hour climb will become an eight-minute ride. They have promised more pilgrims, more revenue for Taplejung, more hotel jobs, and easier access for the elderly and disabled.
That is the promise. Here is what has actually happened since they started building:
- 2018: Phungling Municipality approves the project.
- Jan 25, 2025: Police open fire on protesters near the construction site at Kaflepati. Several injured, two seriously, both with gunshot wounds.
- Feb 2025: Fresh clashes, teargas, thirteen people hurt. Indefinite transport shutdown across nine eastern districts.
- Aug 2025: Limbu organisations file a formal complaint with the World Bank's Compliance Advisor Ombudsman over IFC advisory involvement in the project.
- Late 2025: Conservation groups report that more than 10,000 trees have been felled inside the construction zone. The zone borders the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, home to snow leopards and red pandas.
- Dec 2025: The CAO formally registers the complaint.
- April 2026: Case enters compliance appraisal. Nepal's Supreme Court has the matter sub judice.
- Last month (April 2026): Prime Minister Balendra Shah orders construction halted immediately and tells security forces to begin withdrawing from the site.
So as of right now, May 2026, the cable car is not finished and it is not running. Construction is paused. But the cleared forest is already cleared, the towers are already up, and nobody seriously thinks this story is over.
Three positions, and they are not equally weighted
The pilgrims who want the cable car
A lot of older Hindu devotees support the project, and I understand why. If you have spent your life waiting for the chance to see Pathibhara Devi and your body is finally betraying you, a cable car is not a luxury. It is a door that was about to close on you opening again. Some temple priests support it too, hoping that easier access means more offerings, better upkeep, more visibility for the goddess.
This is a real and human position. It deserves to be heard. It is not, however, the position of the people who actually live on the mountain.
The Limbu community, and the people of Taplejung
This is where the resistance lives, and it is fierce. The Mukkumlung Protection and Struggle Committee, the Kirat Yakthung Chumlung, and the broader No Cable Car movement have been clear from the beginning: this is not about convenience versus tradition. It is about whether a sacred indigenous landscape can be industrialised without the consent of the people whose scripture it lives inside.
Under international law (ILO Convention 169, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, both of which Nepal has signed), projects of this size on indigenous land require Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Not consultation after the fact. Not approval by a municipality. Consent, from the community itself, before anything is decided. The Limbu community, backed by lawyers from LAHURNIP and by international networks like AIPNEE, say this consent never happened. The project was waved through. When people protested, they were shot at.
Local mayor Amir Maden has claimed that ninety-nine percent of locals support the cable car and that the activists are outsiders being paid to protest. I have been in Phidim, Phungling, Sankhuwasabha, and the villages around Pathibhara enough times in the last two years to tell you, plainly, that this is not what I have heard on the ground. The opposition is local, and it is broad, and it is not going away.
"You cannot offer us a faster road to our own god. The mountain is part of the worship. Removing it is not progress. It is robbery with a permit."
The environmentalists
The cleared forest is the part of this story that does not get enough attention. The construction zone sits beside the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, one of the most ecologically important landscapes in the eastern Himalaya. Snow leopards live in those forests. So do red pandas, Himalayan black bears, and dozens of plant species you will not find anywhere else.
Ten thousand trees, give or take, are now gone from that zone. The environmental impact assessment for the project, conservation groups say, was inadequate to the point of being a paperwork exercise. The World Bank's compliance body is now looking at exactly that question.
Old trail vs cable car, side by side
| Aspect | Old Trail | Cable Car |
|---|---|---|
| Time to temple | 4 to 6 hours uphill | Roughly 8 minutes |
| Physical demand | Steep, high-altitude | Almost none |
| Accessibility | Hard on the old or unwell | Far easier |
| Cultural meaning | The climb is the prayer | The climb is skipped |
| Environmental cost | Minimal | Over 10,000 trees felled |
| Money flow | Tea shops, porters, lodges | Mostly to one operator |
| Indigenous consent | Has existed for generations | Disputed under FPIC |
| Status (May 2026) | Open year-round | Paused, sub judice |
It is not "tradition versus progress." That is a Kathmandu framing.
Whenever I talk about Mukkumlung outside Taplejung, somebody from Kathmandu or Pokhara waves their hand and says "well, you cannot stop progress." As if progress is one thing and it always wears a hard hat.
The Limbu community is not against development. Taplejung needs better roads, real hospitals, proper schools. Young people are leaving the district every week for Qatar and South Korea because there is so little for them at home. Everybody in the eastern hills knows this. Everybody wants the situation to improve.
What people on the mountain are saying is much more specific than "no progress." They are saying: not this project, not this ridge, not approved this way. There are other places in Taplejung where a cable car would make sense. Build one of those. Spend the twenty-two million on irrigation, on the road from Phidim, on the schools that have one toilet for four hundred children. But do not cut a path through Mukkumlung and then ask the Limbu community to be grateful for the access.
That is the position. It has been consistent for years. It has been signed by more than 286 international human rights groups. It is now in front of the World Bank. As of last month it has the Prime Minister's attention. And if you walk through the hills around Phungling in 2026 and ask people what they actually want, you will hear it again and again, quietly, over chiya: leave the mountain alone. We will keep walking.
"We are not afraid of progress. We are afraid nobody will remember why this mountain exists." — A shopkeeper in Phungling, January 2026.
Planning Pathibhara Darshan in 2026
Getting there
The easiest route from Kathmandu is to fly to Bhadrapur (about 45 minutes) and then drive north through Ilam and Phidim to Phungling. That drive takes anywhere from 8 to 10 hours depending on monsoon damage and how recently the bulldozer came through. Overland buses go straight from Kathmandu to Phungling but plan for 18 to 24 hours and a sore back.
From Phungling, shared jeeps run up to Kaflepati and Suketar. From there it is feet, prayer flags, and stone steps.
When to go
- October–November: Best mountain views and dry trails. Peak pilgrim season, so plan accommodation ahead.
- March–April: The rhododendrons come out. Cooler, quieter than autumn.
- Mid-June to early September: Skip it. Leeches, slippery steps, very little visibility.
- December–January: Possible but very cold; you may hit snow on the upper ridge.
Rough costs (2026)
- Kathmandu to Bhadrapur flight: NPR 7,000–9,000 one way
- Bhadrapur to Phungling jeep share: NPR 1,500–2,500
- Phungling to Kaflepati jeep: NPR 800–1,500
- Basic lodge in Phungling: NPR 800–2,000 per night
- Basic lodge near the temple: NPR 1,500–3,000 per night
- Dal bhat: NPR 300–600
- Porter, if you need one: NPR 2,000–3,500 per day
What to bring
A real rain shell, gloves, a beanie, a torch, sturdy boots, and more cash than you think you need. ATMs above Phidim are not reliable. October ridge temperatures can hit freezing even on sunny days.
Some quiet respect
- Take your shoes off before the temple.
- Ask before you photograph people in prayer.
- If you are a non-Limbu visitor, use both names when you talk about the mountain. Call it Pathibhara, and call it Mukkumlung. It costs you nothing and it matters to the people who live here.
- Eat at the small family tea shops on the trail. Stay in family lodges. The trail economy is fragile right now and your money makes a difference.
Things people ask before they go
Is the Pathibhara cable car running in 2026?
No. As of May 2026 the cable car is not operational. Construction has been paused by an order from the Prime Minister, the case is sub judice in the Supreme Court, and a World Bank compliance review is ongoing. Pilgrims are reaching the temple on foot, the way they always have.
How long is the walk to Pathibhara?
Most people take 4 to 6 hours from Kaflepati or Suketar to the temple. Add another 2 to 3 hours if you are starting from Phungling itself.
Why is Mukkumlung sacred to the Limbu people?
Mukkumlung is named in the Mundhum, the oral scripture of the Kirati peoples, as a sacred origin landscape. It is tied directly to the Limbu (Yakthung) community's identity, ancestors, and spiritual practice. It cannot be moved or replaced.
Can non-Hindus and non-Limbus visit?
Yes. The temple welcomes visitors of any background. Show respect for both the Hindu and Kirati traditions, walk gently, and ask before you photograph people.
Is it safe to trek alone?
Generally, yes. The trail is well-used, especially in pilgrim season. Solo women travellers have reported feeling comfortable. Take the usual mountain precautions: tell someone your route, carry a charged phone, watch the weather.
What is the elevation of the temple?
Roughly 3,794 metres, or about 12,447 feet. Altitude is manageable for most fit walkers but be sensible if you have heart or lung issues.
How can I support the local community's position?
Walk the old trail. Stay in family-run lodges. Eat at small tea shops. Use both names — Pathibhara and Mukkumlung — when you talk about your trip. Share the story when you get home. Awareness is doing more for this mountain right now than donations.
The bell at the top
On my last morning in Taplejung this winter, I was sitting outside a small tea shop in Phungling with a Limbu man I had only just met. The cable car towers were somewhere up on the ridge behind a layer of cloud. We did not talk about them for a long time.
Then he said, very quietly, looking at his cup, "We are not afraid of the cable car. We are afraid that one day a child from our village will walk past the towers and not know what the mountain is called."
That has stayed with me longer than I expected.
Whatever happens with this project, whatever the courts decide and whatever the World Bank's watchdog finds, Mukkumlung is still there. The old trail is still there. The bell at the top still rings the same way it has for as long as anyone can remember. If you go in 2026, walk up. Take your time. Drink the tea on the way. When you come back down, use both names when you tell the story.
The goddess will know. Her grandmothers definitely will.
If this story matters to you, share it. Awareness travels further than any cable car.
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