For the first time trekker the prospect of trekking in the Himalaya can be daunting as well as thrilling. Compared to a week's backpacking in the Rockies or bush walking in Tasmania, trekking in Nepal is an altogether different experience. Rather than jumping into the wilderness to get away from it all, you walk into a countryside free from roads. Villages caught in a time warp abound, their terraced fields stacked up huge hillsides. The paths are timeless pilgrimage routes, trails between villages or tracks to high grazing pastures. It is by no means wilderness, but it is an incredibly beautiful natural world. Only higher up in the alpine valleys are the villages left behind, to be replaced by herder's huts and higher still, the ice castles of the lofty Himalaya.
