Rara National Park

You are met at the airport and transferred to your hotel in Kathmandu. The afternoon is spent on the briefing and on paperwork, which for the far west takes longer than most people expect - Rara National Park permits and the internal flight bookings both need confirming before you leave the capital. We go through the route, the camping arrangements and your kit. Rara National Park is the smallest in Nepal at just over a hundred square kilometres and exists principally to protect the lake and the blue pine, spruce and juniper forest around it. Anything missing from your equipment can be found in Thamel the same afternoon.

A flight of about an hour takes us west to Nepalgunj on the Terai plain near the Indian border. It is hot, flat and low, and it is on this itinerary purely because the onward mountain flight leaves from here early in the morning before the weather in the Karnali builds. The afternoon is free; the bazaar is worth an hour. We stay overnight in Nepalgunj and start before dawn tomorrow, and it is worth understanding that this leg of the journey is the part most likely to slip if the weather turns.

The morning flight to Talcha takes half an hour and lands on a hill airstrip at about 2,700m in Mugu, one of the remotest districts in Nepal. From the airstrip we walk, and it is a straightforward three hours: over the ridge above the strip and then down through blue pine and spruce forest to the lake at 2,990m. The first sight of Rara from the top of the ridge - nearly five kilometres of deep blue water in a bowl of dark forested hills, with the Karnali peaks standing behind - is what people come this far to see. Camp is set on the flat ground near the park headquarters at the eastern end.

A full day at the lake, walking the shoreline circuit of about thirteen kilometres through blue pine, spruce and juniper. It is easy going and takes five or six hours at a wandering pace, with the water changing colour through the day from steel grey to deep blue as the light moves across it. Musk deer, Himalayan black bear and red panda live in this forest and there are otter in the lake; through the winter migratory waterfowl use the water. The park is among the least visited protected areas in the Himalaya, and the thing that registers most is the silence - there is a very good chance you will not meet another visitor all day.

The climb to Murma Top on the ridge south of the lake, about three hours up through forest and then open meadow, reaching around 3,600m. From the top the whole basin lies below you with the lake in the middle of it, and to the north-west the view opens to the Api and Saipal massifs on the Tibetan border - big, remote peaks that almost nobody sees. It is the best single viewpoint of the trek. We come down in the afternoon by a different line through the forest and are back at camp with time to spare.

We leave the lake and walk east and down to Gamgadhi, the district headquarters of Mugu at about 2,100m, four to five hours mostly descending. Gamgadhi is small, remote and entirely unvisited by tourists - a bazaar, a hospital, a few government offices - and it is a good place to see how the Karnali actually works day to day. The walk down passes through terraced fields and small settlements, and the temperature climbs noticeably as you lose height. Camp or a very simple lodge.

Through Karnali villages on the way to Pina, five to six hours of walking that is more about the people than the landscape. This is one of the poorest and least-served parts of Nepal and also one of the most striking: flat-roofed stone houses, buckwheat and barley terraces, water mills on the streams, and a way of life that has changed slowly. You will attract a good deal of friendly curiosity. Camp near Pina at about 2,400m, with the evening noticeably warmer than at the lake.

The walk back up to the Talcha airstrip, four to five hours with a steady climb through forest for the second half. There is a last view of the lake from the ridge as you come over it, which is worth stopping for. We camp near the airstrip rather than at the lake so that we are in position for a first-light departure, and the last evening is spent with the crew.

The flight from Talcha to Nepalgunj goes early, weather permitting. Flights in this part of Nepal are considerably more weather-dependent than elsewhere and a day's delay is not unusual, which is precisely why the itinerary carries a spare day rather than connecting straight through. If we fly on schedule the afternoon in Nepalgunj is free. If we do not, we wait, and the spare day absorbs it.

The flight from Nepalgunj to Kathmandu takes about an hour and puts you back in the capital in the middle of the day. The afternoon is free for Thamel and for the shower and the meal that everybody wants after ten days of camping in the Karnali. We have a farewell dinner with the crew in the evening and go through your onward arrangements.