About the Mugu section of the Great Himalaya Trail
Mugu is the most remote and least visited of the regions on the Great Himalayan Trail. Nepal’s largest lake, Rara Lake and the Rara National Park are located in the southern section of the region and this area is reasonably well known to trekkers, however the higher reaches of the north are visited by very few travellers and remains little known to most foreigners in Nepal and even to many Nepali people. This area is the last developed in Nepal, with roads only accessed by three days walk (at the locals’ pace!) from the District Headquarters at Gamghadi.
Mugu was once part of the Malla Kingdom of the Karnali River basin which reigned in the 12th to 14th centuries. The region is literally scattered with artefacts of this kingdom, particularly along the old ‘royal highway’ from the Inner Terai, through Jumla and up into Tibet. You may see ancient shrines to the local deity ‘Masta’ as well as carved wooden effigies of spirits festooned with bells, flowers and cloth. At Rara Lake you can find ‘Malla stones’ which are pillars of rock with Devanagari inscriptions and figures of sun and moon.
As with the Dolpo region to the east and the Humla region to the west, northern Mugu lies in the vast rain shadow behind the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna Himal (ranges) and is arid, less intensively farmed and sparsely populated with people of Tibetan origin. The southern section has rugged ranges forested with ancient blue pine, spruce and cedar and villages of Chhetri, Brahmin and Thakuris, the high caste Hindus interspersed with Bhotias. A fascinating aspect of travel in this region is the ‘blurring’ between Hindu, Buddhist and ancient shamanic practices, styles of living as seen in dress, house styles and cultural practices.
The Mugu region is, like other regions in the rain shadow areas, a food deficit area. You must be highly self sufficient to travel in this region and food is often unavailable at any price so you must bring everything you need with you. Porters are also hard to find at the lower regions as the high caste Hindus are not particularly interested in working as porters, just as they are not keen on having casteless foreigners stay in their houses, although you may be able to sleep on the flat roof of their Tibetan style houses.
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