Wide angled lens for mountains?

It is clear that for astro/landscape that an ultra wide angle/FE is the way to go. The 8mm FE at 400 grams (a chocolate bar) is the most versatile for this. Were it me with modern digital I would certainly take advantage of that opportunity in Nepal. You will miss some sleep but even just seeing the huge peaks surrounded by a sea of stars will be something you will always remember.

But even for scenics, to encompass the entire scope of the scene from valley bottom to mountaintop in the Himalaya it will be much easier to accomplish with a wide angle. Sure in some cases you can stitch but often the angles and perspective with incredible breadth and height of the terrain will make that an exercise in futility or at least demanding of time and PP. Personally, I prefer to shoot and move on. I counted the number of different compositions (often with multiple exposures or slight tweaks in composition) I did on this day. It numbered 17 and I was on the move for roughly ten hours, arriving back at the car ten minutes before sunset after traveling the last three hours (quite a bit of which was well off trail) rapidly and without any breaks. I just did fit in 17 compositions but hung waiting for the light at the greatest distance from my return. I did not carry a tripod but did a selfie by stacking rocks for a shooting platform.

It would take many stitched photos on 3 or so levels to encompass this scene. And the beauty of a wide angle is that you can see all of what captured your eye at a point in time on your trip in one view. I wouldn't cut anything out of this scene.

Some others have said that it is difficult to compose without dead space with a wide angle. I disagree. With a wide angle the view changes so rapidly as you move that framing is often simple. A telephoto is much more difficult to compose by moving. With a wide angle I will usually find the edge of a perch for shooting so that the foreground does not become dominant if not interesting.