Easy treks in Nepal

Despite being home to most of the world's tallest mountains, trekking in Nepal can – in places – be relatively easy-going.

Most of the mountain trails started out as trading routes and travellers of old didn't make life more difficult than it needed to be, generally following the easiest routes through the mountains wherever possible.

You'd be hard-pressed to call trekking in Nepal truly easy, but there are certainly some routes that pose less of a challenge than you might first think.

Here are a handful of my recommended easy Nepal treks, ideally suited for beginners or those with younger or older trekkers.

A wonderful way to reach (or leave) the Everest area and though it doesn’t offer the same kind of high altitude mountain scenery of the Khumbu, it does offer peaceful walking with barely a single other foreign trekker around, beautiful rural vistas and mountain views, traditional village life.

Mixing heart-stirring mountain views with enchanting villages and beautiful forests with a thousand blooming rhododendrons, this is a fabulous introduction to trekking in Nepal.

The trailheads are only about an hour’s drive out of Pokhara and there are excellent trekking lodges along the route plus some luxury hotels.

It’s also an ideal first time trek for families and those who don’t want to go too high. But do keep in mind that there’s a lot of steep up and down.

If you’re looking for a short, relatively easy and simple to organise trek that doesn’t venture too high (4,130m), and with unusually comfortable accommodation, then the Annapurna Sanctuary ticks all the boxes.

The standard route follows the Langtang river up a steep and narrow valley. On day two the trail passes over the rubble fields under which Langtang village is buried and on day three the valley opens out to arrive at Kanjin Gompa and big views of Langtang Lirung (7,246m), Langtang II (6,581m) and, perhaps the most distinctive mountain in the valley, the pyramid shaped Mt Gangchempo (6,387m). Kanjin Gompa can be a base for many different day and overnight side trips.

The closest trek to Kathmandu — it starts from the northern outskirts of the city — takes you on a fairly gentle amble through terraced fields, wild forests, flower meadows and through lots of little villages with views of the mountains. The highest point reached on this trek is 3,640m, so it can be done as a mid-winter trek when higher routes might be snowed in. You can make an enjoyable week-long circuit (a good option for those with little time and/or trekking experience), but most people choose to use Helambu either as a walk in or out route to Gosainkund and the Langtang Valley.

This route aims to highlight the culture of the Tamang people as much as the mountain scenery. It’s a real community project with money generated from trekkers going into local development projects and trekkers being hosted at night by families in their village houses.

This short and sweet trek follows the Suli Gaad river through pristine forest to the beautiful Phoksundo Lake. It is 4.8km long, 1.8km wide and, at over 600m deep, the deepest lake in Nepal.