Where to Walk in October

October is the month the hut tours are over

October is not a quieter Tour du Mont Blanc. The TMB season ends in mid-September. Alta Via 1’s season ends with September too, once you are past the weeks the rifugios are open. If the trip in your head is a high Alpine refuge chain, you have missed it. Move the month, or move the walk.

What October actually opens is a different list. Annapurna Base Camp’s autumn window starts. Everest’s autumn, which began in late September, is underway. The Kumano Kodo’s autumn begins. The Israeli desert cools enough to leave the rim. Petra and the Great Wall at Jinshanling enter the clear months. Kilimanjaro’s second dry season and the Joffre Lakes walk are both in their last weeks, not their first. The month list is on Where to walk in October. The handoff from the Alps is Where to walk in September.

Nepal, which is the point of this month

Annapurna Base Camp

Seven days, about 90 km, about 5,000 m of ascent, graded hard. The sanctuary sits at 4,130 m, inside a ring of peaks you reach up a single gorge and leave the same way. The seasons are October to November and March to April. The page says to avoid the June to September monsoon, and to treat deep winter snow above Deurali as its own danger.

October is the start of the autumn window, not a warm-up for it. The large number on this page is the ascent, 5,000 m, not the camp altitude. The day that hurts is the drop to the Chhomrong Khola and the climb back out. Teahouses run the whole way, so this is not a camping expedition. You need the Annapurna Conservation Area permit before you start. Above Deurali the path crosses avalanche tracks: in snow, ask at the lodges and cross early. October is the month those warnings are about timing, not about staying home. The choice against Everest is Everest or Annapurna base camp.

Annapurna Base Camp

Everest Base Camp, already in season

Eight days, about 110 km, about 3,200 m of ascent, graded hard, to base camp at 5,364 m. The seasons are March to May and late September to November. October is the middle of the autumn season, which is the comfortable reading of this trail: the start was late September, and November is still inside the window.

This highlights line is compressed. The classic pace adds acclimatisation days the eight-day version does not have, so you want to be honest about altitude before you treat October as a standard trekking holiday. The viewpoint for the summit is Kala Patthar, at 5,545 m. Base camp itself does not show it. You still fly into Lukla, at 2,860 m, and walk from there. October does not change any of that. It only means you are inside the season. Spring, if you are comparing calendars, was Where to walk in March.

Everest Base Camp

A pilgrimage, a desert, a city, a wall

The Kumano Kodo

Four days, about 41 km, about 2,100 m of ascent, graded moderate, on the Nakahechi from Takijiri-oji to Hongu. The good seasons are spring, late March to May, and autumn, October to November. The June rains and humid midsummer are the months to avoid.

October is the opening of that autumn: forest, stone steps, small villages and family lodgings. The beds are few, and in spring and autumn they go months ahead, so reserve before you commit to the dates. July belongs to Fuji. It is a poor month on this pilgrimage.

The Kumano Kodo

The Israeli desert, from the rim down

Makhtesh Ramon is about 18 km and 400 m over one or two days, graded moderate. The season is October to April. Spring and autumn are the ideal. Midsummer on the crater floor is dangerous, and July and August are the months to stay on the rim or skip the descent.

October is the month that warning lifts. The crater is an erosion cirque, some 500 m deep, and the walk that matters is the one that drops onto the floor: the coloured sands, the Carpentry’s columns, the spring at Ein Saharonim. The rim town, Mitzpe Ramon, sits at about 860 m. Carry at least 5 litres a person a day. Ein Saharonim is not a drinking supply. Two days is the version where the crater becomes a place rather than a view. Ein Avdat and the Snake Path at Masada use the same October to April window and the same summer warning. The season runs through the winter: Where to walk in January.

Makhtesh Ramon

Petra

One day, about 14 km, about 600 m of ascent, graded moderate. The seasons are March to May and September to November. October sits in the second of those, which is the reason to walk the city rather than hurry it.

The route is the main trail from the visitor centre through the Siq to the Treasury, on past the Royal Tombs, and up to the Monastery: some 800 rock-cut steps. The challenge is distance, heat and stairs, not technical ground. Start near opening. The horse and cart rides exist, and the page’s view is that the site is best walked. October is cool enough to mean that. July is not this season.

Petra

The Great Wall at Jinshanling

One day, about 10 km, about 700 m of ascent, graded moderate, from Jinshanling toward Simatai. The season is the cool, dry stretch from October to April. Summers are hot and hazy. October is the start of the clear months, which is when this wall looks like the photograph and the walking is not a heat slog.

It is a real half-day, watchtower after watchtower, with the restored stone giving way to rougher wall. The through-route ends at Simatai West. There is an entry ticket and no guide requirement. The trip from Beijing is about two and a half hours by road. October is the month to spend that drive. August is the month the page is steering you away from.

The Great Wall at Jinshanling

Two seasons that are ending, not opening

Kilimanjaro

The Machame Route is six days, about 62 km, about 4,900 m, graded expert, to Uhuru Peak at 5,895 m. Dry seasons are January to March and June to October. October is the last month of the second one. November is not a bonus week the page offers you.

You climb with a licensed operator. Independent trekking is not allowed. October is the close of the dry season, with less room to slide a summit day than a July start. The long rains to refuse are April and May. The month this season is in full swing is Where to walk in July.

Kilimanjaro, the Machame Route

Joffre Lakes

About 10 km, about 370 m, graded moderate, a day from the highway up to three turquoise lakes under the Matier icefield. The climb to the upper lake is about five kilometres. The season is July to early October, outside the scheduled cultural closures. From November to late May the trail is snowbound.

October here means early October, not the last weekend. In 2026 a cultural closure ran from 8 to 30 September, so the start of October was both the reopen and the end of the walking window the page names. A free day-use pass was required through 25 October that year, released two days ahead. Go early in the month, and check that year’s closure dates before the three-hour drive from Vancouver.

Joffre Lakes

What people try to put in October, and should not

The Inca Trail’s dry season is May to September. October is outside it. February is a full closure for maintenance, and that fact does not make October a dry-season month. Salkantay uses the same dry season. Its rainy season, November to March, is the one tied to mud and landslides. October is the gap between those seasons. Read Inca Trail or Salkantay and pick a month the pages name.

Fuji’s official season on the Yoshida Trail is early July to early September. October has no huts, no season buses, no summit services in the sense the page means. The climb people do is the one inside that official window.

October is for Annapurna’s opening weeks, for Everest while the autumn is established, for Kumano, the Negev, Petra and Jinshanling, and for the last honest days on Kilimanjaro and at Joffre Lakes. It is not for a refuge tour of Mont Blanc, and it is not for a permit you meant to use on the Inca Trail.