For the people in the hills of Nepal, walking has always been the main method of getting from A to B. There were no roads leading into the hill country from the Terai or India until the Tribhuvan Highway to Kathmandu was constructed in the 1950s. Pokhara was not connected to the outside world by road until the 1970s. Even today the vast majority of villages can only be reached on foot, although every year the road penetrate farther into Nepal’s endless ranges of hills.
The Nepali people, making their way from village to village on the well-worn trials, were only joined by Western visitors when Himalayan mountaineering came into vogue. It was the accounts of those pioneering mountaineers, who had to make their way to the base of the great peaks on foot, that inspired the first trekkers. The word ‘trekking’ was first applied to Nepali hiking trips in the 1960s and the enormous popularity of trekking today has developed since that time.
Trekking in Nepal means a walking trip following trials, many of which have been used for centuries. It is not mountaineering, although some of the popular trekking trials are used by mountaineering expeditions on their approach marches. Their length varies – there are popular treks around the Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys that only take a day and others that last a week or a month. You could even string a series of popular treks together and walk for months on end.
There is no question that Nepal offers some of the most spectacular and beautiful scenery in the world. Nepal has a near monopoly on the world’s highest peaks – eight of the ten highest are found here. A number of the popular trekking routes offer you wonderful views of these peaks and some visit the base camps used by mountaineering expeditions. Mountain flights may give you superb views, but there is absolutely nothing like waking up on a crystal-clear Himalaya day and seeing an 8000m peak towering over you.
The snowcapped mountains may be the most obvious scenic attraction, but there are plenty of other treats for the eye. A typical trek climbs out of the subtropical lowlands of terraced fields, oak and chestnut, through whistling stands of pine and forest of stately rhododendrons, until emerging through stunted birch or juniper into the treeless alpine zone at the foot of the great peaks.
Trekking in Nepal is not like hiking through an uninhabited national park. Local people are constantly passing by on the trials, usually carrying extraordinarily heavy loads of unexpected items. And along many routes there are regularly spaced villages in which to pause and find shelter. In the villages you can meet people from a diversity of ethnic groups. The warm, outgoing nature, general friendliness and good humour of Nepalis is often noted by trekkers. Religious festivals can make trekking even more enjoyable and interesting.