Tibet · The Part of Tibet With Trees
Pagsum Lake (巴松措)
A turquoise lake in the forested valleys of Nyingchi, with a monastery on an island in the middle of it. Most images of Tibet are of high dry plateau. This is the other Tibet, a thousand metres lower and covered in conifers.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A long freshwater lake in a forested valley of eastern Tibet, with a small island near one end carrying a monastery |
|---|---|
| Where | Gongbo’gyamda county, Nyingchi prefecture, about four hours east of Lhasa by road |
| Altitude | About 3,500 m, which is roughly 150 m lower than Lhasa and far lower than most of the plateau |
| The island | Tsodzong, a small Nyingma monastery reached from the shore by a causeway |
| Why it is green | Nyingchi sits in the valleys that drain toward the Indian monsoon, and gets moisture that never reaches central Tibet |
| The name | Pagsum Tso in Tibetan, Basum Cuo in Chinese, and both are used locally |
| Best for | Anyone who wants Tibet without the altitude of the plateau proper |
| Time needed | A full day from Lhasa, or a night on the shore, which is better |
Why Go
Tibet With a Treeline
1. Not the Tibet in the photographs
The image of Tibet that reaches the rest of the world is high, dry and bare: the plateau at four thousand metres and up, brown and gold, with grass and rock and enormous distances. That is most of the region and it is what Lhasa and Shigatse sit on. Nyingchi, in the east, is a different country.
The valleys here drain south and east toward the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo, and moisture from the Indian monsoon works its way up them. The result is continuous conifer forest, spruce and fir and juniper running up the valley sides to a treeline, rivers running clear and green, and a lake like this one sitting among trees rather than among rock. Visitors arriving from Lhasa are often more surprised by this than by anything else in Tibet, and many of them find the lower altitude a considerable relief.
2. The island and the causeway
Near one end of the lake there is a small wooded island with a monastery on it: Tsodzong, of the Nyingma school, reached by a timber causeway from the shore. It is not large and it takes very little time to walk round, and it is the thing everyone photographs, for the obvious reason that a yellow roof on a green island in turquoise water is difficult to ignore.
The more interesting part is that it is a working local shrine rather than a monument. People come round it, leave offerings and walk the circuit, and the island is small enough that a visitor doing the same thing is immediately in among them rather than observing from a distance. Anyone who has found the great monasteries of central Tibet overwhelming will find this a much easier place to understand what a Tibetan shrine is for.
The catch. This is still Tibet: foreign visitors need the permits and the organised travel that the whole region requires, and the drive from Lhasa is four hours each way on a road that crosses a high pass. The lake is a popular domestic destination and the shore near the island is developed, with a car park, boardwalks and a ticket gate. At 3,500 metres the altitude is mild by Tibetan standards but it is not nothing.
Orientation
Four Hours East of Lhasa
Almost everyone comes from Lhasa, either as a long day trip or as the first stop on the way east to Nyingchi town and the Yarlung Tsangpo gorge. The road is good and crosses the Mila pass at about 5,000 metres before dropping into the forest, and the change of vegetation on the way down is worth staying awake for.
At the lake the road ends at a gate and a car park near the island. From there it is a short walk over the causeway to the monastery and along boardwalks by the shore. Getting further along the lake, or up the valley above it, needs either a vehicle or a willingness to walk, and that is where the day stops being a photo stop.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Stay the night if you can
The lake empties in the late afternoon when the Lhasa day trips leave, and the light on the water at either end of the day is the reason to be here.
Walk the island circuit properly
It takes twenty minutes and it is what the place is for. Going clockwise is the convention and it costs nothing to follow it.
Come down from Lhasa, not up
Arriving here after a few days at Lhasa altitude is comfortable. Arriving at Lhasa from here is the harder direction.
Look at the treeline on the way in
The drive down from the pass crosses the whole sequence from bare plateau to closed forest in about an hour, and nothing explains eastern Tibet better.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| April to June | Rhododendron and peach blossom in the Nyingchi valleys, clear light and moderate crowds | Late spring is the start of the wet season further east |
| September to October | The clearest air of the year, the deciduous trees turning and the snow peaks out | The first week of October is a national holiday |
| July and August | Everything green and the valleys at their most lush | The wet months, with cloud often down on the ridges |
| November to March | Cold, quiet, still water and very few visitors | The pass can close after snow and some facilities shut |
Context
Why Eastern Tibet Is Wet
The Tibetan plateau is dry because it is walled off. The Himalaya stands across the south of it and takes the monsoon rain out of the air before it can get over, which is why central Tibet is a cold desert at four thousand metres. Eastern Tibet is the exception, and the reason is a gap in the wall.
At the eastern end of the Himalaya the Yarlung Tsangpo turns and cuts down through the range in a gorge deeper than anything else on earth, and that gorge works as a duct. Warm wet air from the Indian side is drawn up it and spills into the valleys behind, which is why Nyingchi has forest, rainfall and a treeline while land at the same altitude two hundred kilometres west has none of those things. The whole character of this district follows from one gap in one mountain range.
That also explains why this corner has always been different politically and culturally. Forest meant timber, and timber meant building and boats; the lower altitude meant farming rather than only herding. The villages around this lake grow barley and keep stock and cut wood, a combination that is not available on the plateau proper, and the settlements here look and work differently because of it.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · 280 km west
Potala Palace (布达拉宫)
Lhasa, the usual base and the place almost everyone arrives from.
Spot · 280 km west
Jokhang Temple (大昭寺)
The pilgrimage centre of Tibet, and a useful comparison with the small shrine on the island here.
Spot · 250 km east
Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon (雅鲁藏布大峡谷)
The gorge that lets the wet air in, and the reason this valley has trees.
Where to Base
Nyingchi (林芝)
Nyingchi is the prefecture and the town of the same name is about three hours further east, with an airport that makes it possible to fly in at a comfortable altitude and work up toward Lhasa rather than down from it. For anyone worried about altitude, that is the gentler way to arrange a Tibetan trip.
The district is wet, green and comparatively low, and it is where people from Lhasa go when they want trees. Treating it as a destination rather than a corridor is the change that makes the eastern half of Tibet worth a week.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · 2 hr
The island and the causeway
The walk over to Tsodzong, the circuit round it, and the shore path.
On site · full day
Up the valley
Beyond the ticket gate: the head of the lake, the forest and the villages, away from the day-trip stop.
Guided · 8 days
Lhasa and the forested east
The city, this lake and the Yarlung Tsangpo gorge, arranged so the altitude works in your favour and the climate story joins up.
Give it a night rather than a day, walk the island circuit the way everyone else does, and then get away from the gate and look at the ridges. They carry closed conifer forest from the waterline up to a treeline, and that is the whole point: two hundred kilometres west, at the same height, there is not a tree to be seen.
The Green Half of Tibet
Tell us your dates and our Tibet team will handle the permits, bring you east from Lhasa with a night on the lake rather than a rushed day, and take you on to the gorge that makes this valley what it is.