A cave monastery carved into a cliff face above the village of Yara, reachable only by a scramble up an exposed rock chimney, and among the least-visited sacred sites in Upper Mustang.
Of everywhere we went in Upper Mustang, Luri Gompa is the one I’m least able to describe to people without sounding like I’m exaggerating. It sits in a side valley south of Lo Manthang, above the small village of Yara, and getting there involves a scramble up a near-vertical rock chimney using footholds worn into the stone by centuries of monks and pilgrims before you. Lia went first. I spent most of the climb trying not to look down at the drop and mostly failing.
A monastery built into the sky
The gompa itself is a cave complex carved directly into the cliff, centered on a chorten built inside a natural rock chamber — a structure so improbable that early Western visitors to the region assumed it had to be a later addition until closer study confirmed it dates to at least the 13th century, with some traditions placing its founding centuries earlier still. The murals inside, protected from weather by the cave’s own rock ceiling for the better part of a millennium, retain colors — deep reds, blues, gold leaf — that have faded far less than exposed frescoes elsewhere in Mustang.
Yara and the valley below
Yara, the village that serves as the base for the climb, is little more than a handful of houses and a lot of eroded badlands scenery, but it has its own quiet appeal — we stayed with a family whose grandfather had been a caretaker of the gompa in his younger years and who talked, through our guide’s translation, about the winters he’d spent essentially alone up there, restringing prayer flags that the wind kept tearing loose. From the cave mouth, looking back down the valley, the whole landscape reduces to bands of ochre and grey canyon walls with the thread of a river barely visible at the bottom.
We didn’t meet another traveler the entire day — not on the trail, not at the gompa, not back in Yara that evening. In a region that already feels remote, Luri Gompa manages to feel like a step further still.
When to go: May through October, when the side trails off the main Mustang loop are clear and dry. The final scramble is unsuitable in wet conditions or for anyone with serious vertigo — ask your guide honestly before committing to the climb.