Past the last road head in Karnali, almost everything heavy travels by mule. Trains of a dozen to several dozen animals work the trails north from Jumla and out of Simikot, carrying rice, cement, roofing tin and fuel to villages no truck can reach. You hear the bells on the lead animal several minutes before you see anything.
What a caravan is like to meet
The lead mule wears bells and often a red woollen headdress, and the rest follow it without much instruction. Loads are roped in balanced pairs onto a wooden pack saddle, because an unbalanced load turns and pulls an animal off a narrow trail. One or two muleteers walk behind, whistling, occasionally throwing a stone to keep a straggler moving.
The rule for a walker is simple and worth knowing before you need it. Step off the trail on the hillside, never on the drop side, and stand still until they have all gone past. A loaded mule takes the outside line of a corner, does not judge your width, and will not go around you.
What they carry
Northbound is the loaded direction. Subsidised rice into the food-deficit northern districts is one of the largest single flows, along with cooking oil, salt, sugar, noodles, kerosene and diesel in jerry cans, cement, reinforcing bar, corrugated roofing sheets, solar panels, school furniture and beer. Almost anything a village building project needs has come up on an animal.
Southbound they mostly go back light. There is some wool, some medicinal herbs, empty containers and returning traders. That asymmetry is the economics of the whole system: the freight rate has to cover a round trip that only earns in one direction, which is why a sack of cement in a high village costs a multiple of what it costs in the bazaar below.
| How freight moves | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Truck and tractor | To the last point the road reaches, and no further | Cheapest by a wide margin, which is why every district wants the road |
| Aircraft | Simikot, Juphal, Talcha and the other hill strips | Weather-dependent, expensive, the only link for anything urgent into Humla |
| Mule train | Established trails with workable gradients | The bulk carrier beyond the road head; runs to its own schedule |
| Porter | Anywhere, including snow and washed-out sections | Takes what the animals cannot, and does the last stretch into villages off the main trail |
The routes north
From Jumla the trails run north and west towards Mugu and Rara, and east towards Dolpa. From Simikot in Humla the main line goes up the valley to Hilsa on the Tibetan border, with branches into the Limi villages. Juphal and Dunai serve the Dolpo valleys. Humla is the important case: it still has no road connection to the rest of Nepal's network, so goods either fly into Simikot or come across from the Tibet side and travel down. Anyone walking a Karnali circuit will share trail with caravans for days at a time.
The muleteers
They are mostly hill men from the same districts, often working animals owned by someone else in the bazaar. The day is set by grazing and water rather than by daylight, so caravans stop early where there is grass and start before dawn where there is not. They sleep in trail inns with a shed or a walled yard for the animals, and they shoe the mules on the trail, which is a job you will see done on a flat stone at the roadside.
A mule is a substantial capital asset — closer to a vehicle than a farm animal in what it costs and what it earns. Losing one down a slip is a household catastrophe rather than a bad day, which is why muleteers refuse to move stock on wet, broken ground and are entirely uninterested in your opinion about it.
The older trade underneath it
All of this is the residue of something much larger. For centuries salt from the Tibetan plateau came south over the passes and grain went north, carried by yaks, crossbred cattle, and flocks of sheep and goats with small paired saddlebags. Karnali households timed the year around it. The trade fell away from the middle of the last century as cheap iodised salt arrived from India and the border became a regulated frontier rather than a seasonal doorway — the salt trade routes are the full story.
The road is winning, and that is fine
The Karnali Highway reached Jumla in the late 2000s and the road head has been creeping north ever since. Every new stretch of rough track removes a mule stage, and freight costs in the bazaar at the end of it fall immediately. Mule numbers drop, muleteers take up driving or leave for work abroad, and the bells get further from the district headquarters each year.
It is worth resisting the urge to be sentimental about it. A caravan is a beautiful thing to meet on a trail and a very expensive way to deliver rice to people who do not have much money. Nobody living at the end of the trail is campaigning to keep it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do mule caravans carry in Nepal?
Northbound, subsidised rice, cooking oil, salt, sugar, fuel in jerry cans, cement, reinforcing bar, roofing sheets, solar panels and building material for schools and health posts. Southbound they usually return close to empty, with some wool and medicinal herbs.
How do you pass a mule train safely?
Step off the trail on the hillside, never the side with the drop, and stand still until the whole train has passed. Loaded animals take the outside of a corner and will not move around you.
Is there a road to Humla?
There is now, though it is new and fragile. A Bailey bridge over the Chuwa Khola at Kharpunath, completed in July 2025, closed the last gap between Simikot and the road up from Surkhet. The track is unpaved, single-lane and cut from cliff, and it shuts with weather, so a great deal still flies into Simikot or comes overland from the Tibetan side. Mules still work every trail beyond the road head.
Do salt caravans still cross from Tibet?
Not as a trade in the old sense. Cheap Indian iodised salt and a regulated border ended it from the mid-twentieth century. What crosses at Hilsa today is ordinary manufactured goods, moved by truck on the Tibetan side and by animal on the Nepali one.