Rara Lake: The Quietest Trek in Nepal

Rara Lake sits at 2,990 metres in the remote Mugu district of Karnali, in Nepal far northwest. It is the largest lake in the country and, in terms of visitors per square kilometre of beauty, one of the least visited places in Asia.

This is the trade. Getting to Rara is expensive, logistically fiddly and takes real time, and the reward is a lake surrounded by blue pine and snow peaks with almost nobody on the shore.

Getting there

There are two practical approaches. The quicker one is a flight from Nepalgunj to Talcha airstrip, followed by a walk of a few hours to the lake. Flights are irregular, weather-dependent and often cancelled, and they do not run daily.

The alternative is the long route on foot from Jumla, which takes several days and is a serious trek in its own right. Most people who walk it come in from Jumla and fly out from Talcha.

Either way, arrange it before you leave Kathmandu. There is no walk-up infrastructure here.

Rara Lake, Nepal

The lake

Rara is roughly five kilometres long and two wide, and it is possible to walk the whole circuit in a day. The water changes colour through the day — grey in the early morning, deep blue by noon, streaked with the reflection of the pines along the southern shore.

The lake is a Ramsar wetland site and lies inside Rara National Park, which protects a small and isolated population of red panda along with musk deer and black bear. The forest on the ridgelines above the lake is the best place to look.

On the shore, for most of the afternoon, there may be nobody at all.

Practical considerations

Accommodation is limited to a small number of basic lodges at the lake and in the nearby village. Bring cash, expect no card acceptance and unreliable electricity, and bring more warm layers than the altitude suggests — it is cold at night year round and freezing in winter.

There are no ATMs and mobile coverage is patchy at best.

When to go

The best window is late September to November, and again from March to May. Winter is cold but clear. The monsoon is genuinely difficult here: the airstrip is unreliable, the trails are muddy, and the road approaches can be cut.

Budget at least a week for Rara, including buffer days for flights. This is not a trip to schedule tightly.