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The Karnali River Whitewater Rafting
12 Days
Overview
“Nepal’s longest, largest, and Wilderness and Pristine River in western Nepal.”
Kathmandu Adventure organize and run private and commercial rafting expeditions on some of the best rivers in Nepalese Himalayan and in the world. Karnali River is one of our most beautiful and preferred rivers for big water rafting and camping in Nepal Karnali River is known as Jewels of Himalayan and started from Tibet and drains into the Gangentic basin of India.
Karnali River is Nepal’s longest and largest river and with tributaries, it drains most of the far west of Nepal- the ‘wild west’ as many people call it. This bottom section of the river lives up to that name – the area that it flows through is wild and relatively unpopulated with some of the most pristine jungles, wildlife, and the best scenery in Nepal.
The Karnali River’s rapids are challenging & fun class III – IV+ pools and drops, with the river building to its climax in these lower canyons. Shortly after the sharp bend in the river the elbow by the Lohare Khola the side stream river put-in the valley narrows into a series of canyons, the Karnali river speeds up, and there are big rapids, one leading into another, almost continuously down to the Seti River confluence. From the elbow down the West-Seti River, the gradient is 3 meters per kilometer (15ft per mile), but after here the gradient eases, as the river winds through some of the magnificent un-spoilt scenery, eventually emerging onto the plains and flows through the Royal Bardhiya National Park to join the Ganges.
In terms of volume, the river is comparable to Sunkosi, but the Karnali River is more constrained by its canyon walls; giving bigger, more continuous, and more challenging fun rapids. The constrained nature of the river means that any increase in volume has a more pronounced effect on the difficulty of the rapids and this makes it a river that is best run at low/medium flows, In high water Karnali River gets more challenging to navigate a few rapids especially in the gorge section. The highest extreme instantaneous discharge measured at Chisapani the local town take-out was an incredible 21700cumecs (760000CFS)
The western part of Nepal Karnali Province is the most beautiful remote and untouched area in Nepal, the real life, culture, and tradition are incredibly amazing fascinating, and interesting in the world. People are still living a nomadic life in the area, living in a joint family system, Raute people make wooden craft baskets, pots, and many other stuff and exchange them in the nearby village with grain and nowadays sell into the bigger market to Surkhet. In the western part of Nepal people are relatively poor and closer to the Indian border, many people travel to the nearest town of India to seek jobs and opportunities for financial support for their families mostly youth from 14-35 years old people. Kathmandu Adventure is trying its best to bring more people to the area and support small local businesses and products by buying food for our clients.
The Bheri River is suitable for families’ vacation holidays fishing and rafting it’s in the Karnali province. Our goal is to create some opportunities for those far from Nepal’s youth in rafting adventure tourism and support local tourism.
We organize rafting expeditions all over the Himalayan Tamor River Expedition, and Sunkosi River both Rivers are very popular for multi-day expeditions in Nepal.
Trip Summary
- Starting point: Lohore Khola
- Difficulty: Challenging (Grade III – IV+ )
- Ending point: Chisapani
- Best season: Oct to Dec & April – May
- Distance: 190km.
- Rafting days: 7 days
- Accommodation: Tented camping
- Trip cost: $1450 – $1950 (two-person tent north face)
- River rating: 5 Star
- Trip start and end: Kathmandu
