Red Panda Trail Trek

Welcome to Nepal. You land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m), where our representative meets you in the arrivals hall and drives you to your hotel in Thamel.

Your guide joins you for the briefing: the twelve-day plan, the flight east to Bhadrapur, the community homestay network, and how the forest monitoring works — you walk with a trained local monitor as well as a guide, and they set the pace in the corridor.

We check your kit, with particular attention to waterproofs and leech protection, which matter more on this trek than altitude gear. The rest of the day is yours. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A 45-minute flight east to Bhadrapur (91 m) in the far-eastern Terai, with the eastern Himalaya — Kanchenjunga most obviously — out of the left-hand windows on a clear morning.

From the airport a jeep drives north into the hills, climbing through the tea country. The change is quick and total: flat, hot plain to steep green hillsides covered in tea bushes within an hour.

Ilam (1,200 m) is a hill town in the middle of the estates, and the tea grown around it is the best in Nepal — the same terroir as Darjeeling, immediately across the border.

Around 3–4 hours driving. The afternoon is free to walk in the gardens above town. Overnight at Ilam.

Into the corridor, and the first walking of the trek.

A jeep climbs north-east from Ilam through cardamom terraces and villages to the roadhead at Maimajhuwa (2,100 m), where the local forest monitor joins the group and the porters load.

The trail enters the community forest almost immediately — oak, magnolia and rhododendron, thick with moss and epiphytes, with bamboo in the understorey. This bamboo is the reason for everything else: it is the red panda's main food and the corridor exists to protect it.

Your monitor will point out feeding signs, scat and claw marks on the trunks. Move quietly and keep looking up.

Hangetham (2,400 m) is a small settlement in the forest with community homestays. Around 4 hours of walking. Overnight in a homestay at Hangetham.

A day spent almost entirely under trees, working north along the corridor.

The trail climbs and contours through the heart of the red panda habitat. The forest here is dense and old, with rhododendron reaching tree height and the canopy closed overhead for hours at a time.

This is the best day of the trek for wildlife. Dawn and late afternoon are when red panda move, so the group starts early and walks slowly, and the monitor works the known territories along the route. Even without a sighting the birdlife is extraordinary — satyr tragopan, laughingthrushes, and several species of yuhina and warbler.

Gorja (2,700 m) is a small ridge settlement with homestays and, on a clear evening, the first proper view north.

Around 5 hours. Overnight in a homestay at Gorja.

Up through the last of the forest and onto the high ground.

The trail climbs steadily north, the trees thinning from tall rhododendron to stunted scrub as the altitude rises. Above around 3,000 m the country opens into grazing ground used through the summer.

The views arrive with the open ground, and they are worth the climb: Kanchenjunga (8,586 m) to the north-east, huge and close, with the Sikkim peaks beside it and the Darjeeling hills east across the border.

Chintapu (3,100 m) is a pasture below the main ridge, with room for the tents and water nearby. This is the first camping night of the trek and it is a cold one after the forest.

Around 5 hours. Overnight camping at Chintapu.

A short day onto the crest, and the highest point of the trek.

The trail climbs north along the ridgeline through juniper and dwarf rhododendron, with the ground falling away steeply into Nepal on one side and India on the other. It is only three to four hours, which leaves the afternoon on the ridge.

The Singalila ridge (3,636 m) is the border crest, and the panorama from it is one of the widest available anywhere in the eastern Himalaya. On a clear afternoon: Kanchenjunga and its satellites filling the northern skyline, the Sikkim and Bhutan ranges east, and, in exceptional conditions, Makalu, Lhotse and Everest far to the west.

The camp is on the ridge for one reason — sunrise. Overnight camping on the Singalila ridge.

The morning the trek is built around.

You are up before first light for sunrise over Kanchenjunga. The light hits the summit ridge first and then works down and west across the range, and from this ridge the mountain is close enough to see the individual faces and glaciers rather than a distant silhouette.

After breakfast the day is for walking the ridgeline — north or south along the crest, on open ground with the view in both directions and border pillars marking the line. Four or five hours at an easy pace, with nothing to climb and everything to look at.

The ridge is also good ground for high-altitude birds: blood pheasant, snow pigeon and lammergeier working the updrafts along the crest.

It is a cold camp and an early night. Overnight camping on the Singalila ridge.

Off the ridge and down the western side into Panchthar.

The descent drops steeply off the crest and back into the forest belt, losing more than 1,500 m through rhododendron, oak and finally cardamom terraces. It is a long knee-testing day and poles are worth having out from the top.

Taking a different line down means a different set of villages, and the western side of the corridor is where much of the community forestry work has been concentrated.

Chyangthapu (2,100 m) is a mixed Sherpa and Limbu village with homestays, a gompa and a view back at the ridge you slept on.

Around 6 hours. Overnight in a homestay at Chyangthapu.

The last walking of the trek, down through the cardamom terraces to the road.

A morning's walk of three to four hours descends through farmland — cardamom, millet and tea on every terrace — with villages every half hour and children walking to school on the same path.

This is where the porters and the forest monitor finish and where tips are given. The monitor in particular is worth thanking properly: the corridor exists because local people chose to protect it, and the monitors are the ones doing the work.

The jeep runs back to Ilam (1,200 m) in two to three hours through the tea estates.

A hotel, a hot shower, and Ilam tea drunk where it is grown. Overnight at Ilam.

A half day down out of the hills to the plains, with time in the morning for the tea gardens.

If you want to see how the tea is made, this is the morning for it — several estates near Ilam show visitors the plucking, withering and rolling, and the difference between the grades is much clearer once you have watched it.

The drive south descends through the estates and into the Terai, and the temperature climbs the whole way.

Bhadrapur (91 m) is a flat, green, hot town near the Indian border with the airport that serves the whole eastern hill region.

Around 3–4 hours. Overnight at Bhadrapur.

A 45-minute flight west back to the capital, along the line of the Himalaya.

On a clear morning the whole eastern range is out of the right-hand windows — Kanchenjunga first, then Makalu, Lhotse and Everest — which is a good way to place the ridge you were standing on two days ago.

You arrive in Kathmandu (1,400 m) around midday and transfer to your hotel, with the rest of the day free.

Thamel is the place for shopping, and Ilam tea bought at source is the one thing worth carrying home from this trek. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Your last day in Nepal. If your flight leaves later there is time for Boudhanath, Pashupatinath or the old town at Bhaktapur with your guide.

Our representative collects you from your hotel and transfers you to Tribhuvan International Airport around three hours before departure.

Eastern Nepal is the part of the country trekkers skip, and the red panda corridor is a working conservation project rather than a trekking route that happens to pass through forest. If it suited you, the Kanchenjunga base camp treks start from the same corner of the country and take you right up to the mountain you watched from the ridge. Safe travels.