Makalu Barun National Park is the only strict Nature Reserve in the country and was established in 1992. It borders Sagarmatha National Park in the East and shares a border with Tibet.

The National Park has a rugged, steep terrain and encompasses altitudes from below 1,000m to above 8,000m and therefore a great range of vegetation zones. It is the world’s only protected area to include tropical forests and snow-capped peaks on a altitude range of over 8,000 metres. Climbing upwards will never get boring with the ever changing fauna around you. Here you can find plants and animals that are lost in other areas of Nepal, due to spreading human habitation, such as the shy, rare Red Panda.

On passes and high altitude trails the winter snows stay until April or May, other trails are rocky for most of the year.

Adjacent to the National Park there’s a conservation area as buffer zone, inhabited by communities of Sherpa, Rai, Gurung, Tamang and others. They are actively involved in the protection of the site, their resources and their own cultural heritage.

Header image taken from Flickr CC, courtesy of mtnexplorer.