Cable Cars of Nepal: The Full List of Every Operating Line

As of 2025, Nepal has six firmly established, commercially operating passenger cable cars, plus a growing number of newer and smaller lines. The six benchmark systems are the Manakamana Cable Car (Chitwan to Gorkha), the Chandragiri Cable Car (Kathmandu), the Kalinchowk Cable Car (Dolakha), the Annapurna Cable Car to Sarangkot (Pokhara, Kaski), the Maula Kalika Cable Car (Gaindakot, Nawalpur) and the Lumbini Cable Car (Butwal to Palpa). Together they carry pilgrims and tourists to hilltop temples and viewpoints across four of Nepal's seven provinces.

The exact count depends on how you define a cable car. If you include recently opened or smaller ventures such as the Bandipur and Siddhartha (Butwal-Palpa area) lines, media reports place the working total closer to nine or ten, with another six or seven lines under construction. This directory concentrates on the six mature, widely recognised passenger systems, because they have consistent public data, established operators and years of reliable service.

All of these systems are modern aerial gondola lifts, distinct from Nepal's older goods ropeways such as the historic Kathmandu-Hetauda cargo ropeway (1964-1994) and the still-running Udayapur cement limestone ropeway. This page is a practical 'list of cable cars in Nepal' you can sort by length, height and opening year, followed by deeper profiles and a technology comparison.

The Manakamana Cable Car, opened on 24 November 1998 (Mangsir 2055 BS), was Nepal's first commercial cable car and remains the country's most famous. It climbs from a base station at Cheres near Kurintar on the Prithvi Highway, at about 258 metres above sea level in Chitwan District (Bagmati Province), to the ridgetop shrine of Manakamana in Gorkha District (Gandaki Province) at about 1,302 metres. The line is roughly 2,772 metres long with a vertical rise of about 1,034 metres, and the journey takes around ten minutes.

Supplied by the Austrian manufacturer Doppelmayr, the system runs 34 passenger gondolas seating six people each, along with three dedicated freight carriers used to haul goods, motorcycles and sacrificial goats up to the temple. Its designed throughput is roughly 600 passengers per hour. Operated by Manakamana Darshan Pvt. Ltd., it transformed a strenuous multi-hour uphill pilgrimage to the wish-fulfilling goddess Manakamana into a short, scenic ride over the Trishuli and Marsyangdi river valleys.

Because Manakamana is a major Hindu pilgrimage destination, the line is busiest during festivals such as Dashain, and on Saturdays and Tuesdays that are considered auspicious for temple visits. Its long single free span between towers 5 and 6 (over 500 metres) and steep gradient made it an ambitious engineering project for its era and set the template for every cable car built in Nepal since.

The Chandragiri Cable Car, opened in December 2016 (Poush 2073 BS), is the most accessible ride from the capital. It runs from Thankot on the south-western rim of the Kathmandu Valley up to Chandragiri Hills at roughly 2,540-2,550 metres, where a resort, viewpoint and the Bhaleshwor Mahadev temple await. The line is about 2.4 kilometres long and the ride lasts around nine minutes. Built with Doppelmayr monocable detachable gondola technology and operated by Chandragiri Hills Ltd., it fields roughly 38 eight-seat cabins and offers the highest hourly capacity of any Nepali line at about 1,000 passengers per hour, making it a popular day trip for Kathmandu residents seeking panoramic Himalayan views.

The Kalinchowk Cable Car, opened on 3 November 2018 (Kartik 2075 BS), was Nepal's third cable car and reaches the highest top station of any line in the country. It climbs from Kuri Bazaar in Dolakha District (Bagmati Province) to the Kalinchowk Bhagwati temple at about 3,842 metres, a short but steep line of roughly one kilometre covered in about six minutes. Built for around Rs 450 million and operated by Kalinchok Darshan Pvt. Ltd., it runs a small fleet of four gondolas.

Kalinchowk is prized for winter snow, and the cable car is what turned a demanding high-altitude hike into a viable half-day outing for families. Its altitude also makes it the most weather-sensitive line in the country, with services affected by snow, wind and visibility during the coldest months.

The Annapurna Cable Car, opened on 18 February 2022 (Falgun 2078 BS), connects Pokhara's lakeside area to the celebrated Sarangkot viewpoint. Its base station sits at Sedi Bagar near Phewa (Fewa) Lake at roughly 822 metres, and it rises to Sarangkot at about 1,592 metres, a line of around 2.2-2.3 kilometres completed in roughly nine to ten minutes. Built by the private sector for a reported Rs 2 billion and operated by Annapurna Cable Car Ltd., it uses a Doppelmayr monocable detachable gondola system with around 18 eight-seat cabins, offering effortless access to one of Nepal's best sunrise-and-Annapurna panoramas.

The Maula Kalika Cable Car in Gaindakot, Nawalpur (Gandaki Province), opened on 1 May 2023 (Baisakh 2080 BS). This short 1.2-kilometre line, built for around Rs 1.5 billion by the IME Group with six towers, links the Prithvi Highway town of Gaindakot to the Maula Kalika (Maulakali) temple hill at about 561 metres. It runs 12 passenger gondolas plus two baggage carriers, each seating eight, and completes the climb in roughly five minutes.

The Lumbini Cable Car, brought into commercial operation on 29 May 2023 (Jestha 2080 BS), is the longest passenger line in the country at around three kilometres. Also developed by the IME Group, it runs from Bamghat (Goalpark) in Butwal, Rupandehi District, up to Basantapur in Tinahu Rural Municipality, Palpa District (both in Lumbini Province), where the Kamakhya Devi temple sits at the top station. Using a monocable detachable gondola fleet, it is designed to move several thousand pilgrims and sightseers per day and has quickly become a popular add-on for visitors to the wider Lumbini region.

Nepal's cable cars share a common design language: modern aerial monocable detachable gondola (MDG) systems, most supplied by Doppelmayr of Austria, in which cabins detach from the moving haul rope to slow down inside stations for easy boarding before re-clamping and accelerating on the line. This technology allows continuous circulation, high hourly capacity and gentle boarding, and it is why ride times cluster tightly around five to ten minutes despite very different climbs.

By raw numbers, Lumbini is the longest line (about 3 km), Manakamana has the greatest single climb in absolute terms (over 1,000 metres of vertical rise), Kalinchowk reaches the highest top station (about 3,842 metres), and Chandragiri offers the highest passenger throughput (about 1,000 people per hour). The shortest and quickest ride is Maula Kalika at roughly 1.2 kilometres and about five minutes. Reported figures vary slightly between operators, government records and media, so treat exact metres and cabin counts as indicative rather than absolute.

A defining feature of the sector is that almost every line exists to shorten a pilgrimage: Manakamana, Kalinchowk Bhagwati, Maula Kalika, Chandragiri's Bhaleshwor Mahadev and Lumbini's Kamakhya Devi are all Hindu temple destinations, while Annapurna-Sarangkot and Chandragiri double as pure viewpoints. This tight coupling of faith tourism and mountain scenery is what makes cable cars unusually commercially viable in Nepal's difficult terrain.

Despite the rapid growth of the sector, Nepal has historically lacked a single dedicated law or regulator for passenger cable cars. Oversight has been spread across several agencies, and as of 2024 media reporting noted that operators had no specialised technical authority to turn to, with the Armed Police Force providing emergency rescue on a limited, on-demand basis. Engineers and journalists have repeatedly called for a dedicated regulatory and supervisory body, mandatory safety standards and controls on imported second-hand equipment, pointing to occasional technical stoppages such as those recorded on the Chandragiri line.

The pipeline of new projects is large. Beyond the six core lines, ventures around Bandipur, Butwal-Palpa (Siddhartha) and other hill destinations have opened or are advancing, and the most ambitious proposal is the long-discussed Muktinath Cable Car in Mustang, promoted as one of the world's longest ropeway systems. If even a fraction of the announced lines are completed, Nepal's 'ropeway list' will lengthen considerably over the coming years.

For travellers and researchers, the practical takeaway is simple: cable cars have become a mainstream way to reach Nepal's ridgetop temples and viewpoints, concentrated in the central hills and around Pokhara, Kathmandu, Dolakha, Nawalpur and Lumbini. Fares, opening hours and seasonal schedules change frequently, so always confirm current details with the operator before travelling; the durable facts are the routes, stations and engineering described above.