Nepal is a country with three distinct ecological zones, the flat extension of the Gangetic plane in the South, the Middle hills and the Central Himalayan chain (including bits that are already part of the Tibetan plateau). Unlike most major mountain areas, the middle hills and the higher elevations are quite populated, home to a dense network of trading trails connecting villages. Many of those villages have turned the traditional custom of offering a bed and board to itinerant merchants into thriving mountain lodges open to everyone.
Increased (jeep) road building is beginning to eat into some of the tourist trekking areas that have emerged on this existing trail infrastructure over the last four decades. That said, the trail running possibilities remain virtually endless!
A town and glacial lake as seen from some of the remaining Nepali singletrack.
Apart from being able to run almost anywhere and find accommodation and food (however basic that might be), what makes trail running in Nepal unique are the people and their culture. You get the laughing “Namaste! Namaste!” from groups of small children walking to their distant schools. You negotiate with yaks for space on the trail. Then you take hot sweet tea in a monastery before you finish an evening by the fire in the kitchen of a lodge drinking local chang, the local homebrew.
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