The old walk-in corridor
Jiri sits at 1,935 m, roughly 188 km east of Kathmandu by road, and the trail east of it follows part of the old walk-in corridor used before Lukla's airstrip opened in 1964. The 1953 British expedition set out on foot from Kathmandu: the road to Jiri was only finished in the 1980s.
Why Lukla exists at all
Edmund Hillary himself organised the construction of Lukla's airstrip in 1964, over a decade after his 1953 summit, specifically to support the school-building work of the Himalayan Trust he founded to give back to the Sherpa communities that had supported his expeditions. That airstrip is why nearly every itinerary on this site now flies in rather than walking the week from Jiri.
The lower Solu-Khumbu villages
The week-long walk from Jiri passes through Shivalaya, Bhandar, Sete, and Junbesi, crossing the Lamjura La (3,530 m) and Taksindu La passes along the way, through terraced farmland and forest well below the Khumbu's alpine terrain. This lower corridor sees a fraction of the foot traffic of the Lukla-to-Namche trail.
Why most trekkers skip it now
Flying directly to Lukla removes roughly eight days of walking through lower-altitude farmland before reaching Phakding, where the Jiri route joins the flight-in itineraries.
Who still walks it
The Jiri Route 21-Day itinerary follows part of this old corridor for trekkers who prefer to walk in rather than fly to Lukla, and Pikey Peak (4,065 m) makes an easy detour near the start of the route from the same lower Solu-Khumbu roadhead.
Hillary's schools along the route
Junbesi, one of the villages this corridor passes through, is home to a school Hillary's Himalayan Trust founded in 1964, along with a monastery, a library, and a health post the trust helped establish. A second Hillary-founded school sits beside the trail between Taktor and Junbesi. Trekkers who walk the Jiri route pass direct physical evidence of the same philanthropic project that built the Lukla airstrip most other trekkers fly into instead.