Photo: Carsten.nebel · CC BY-SA 3.0National Parks / Mountain / Chhayanath
Est. 2025 · Nepal's 13th & newest park
Nepal's newest national park, established in 2025 — a remote trans-Himalayan wilderness in Mugu, near the Tibetan border, and a fresh refuge for the snow leopard.
Established on 29 August 2025, Chhayanath is the 13th and newest national park of Nepal — a high trans-Himalayan landscape in the Mugu district of Karnali Province, near the border with Tibet.
It covers approximately 843.36 km², with a buffer zone of 177.37 km². The park was carved out of what was previously part of Shey Phoksundo National Park, and is named after the Chhayanath temple in Chaingaun, near Gamgadhi. It protects some of the most untouched and remote landscapes in the country.
As a very recently established park, detailed published information is still limited; the summary below draws on the available record and will deepen as the park is documented.
Photo: Carsten.nebel · CC BY-SA 3.0The Landscape
Lying near the Tibetan border in remote Mugu, Chhayanath encompasses rugged, high-altitude trans-Himalayan terrain — a landscape of stark mountains, high valleys and some of Nepal's least-disturbed wilderness, formerly within the Shey Phoksundo protected area.
Wildlife
The park shelters endangered and protected animals adapted to the harsh high country.
Photo: Tambako The Jaguar (edit by Niabot) · CC BY-SA 2.0The iconic predator of the Himalayan heights.
Vulnerable
Photo: stli_ · CC BY 4.0The bharal grazes the high slopes — key snow leopard prey.
Photo: Jagdish Singh Negi · CC BY 4.0Among the high-altitude species recorded in the park.
Visiting
Chhayanath is newly established and remote; visitor infrastructure is nascent.
Untouched trans-Himalayan scenery near the Tibetan border.
The nearest town is Gamgadhi in Mugu; access is remote and limited.
As a brand-new park, rules and access are still being established — verify locally.
Reference
Administration
Each park is managed on the ground by a chief warden who reports into Nepal's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC).
Wildlife & Ecology
Chhayanath is the youngest of Nepal's national parks: gazetted on 29 August 2025 by carving roughly 843 km² out of the eastern flank of Shey Phoksundo, plus a 177 km² buffer zone. It exists chiefly to give Mugu's Dolphu and Mugum Karmarong communities a closer protected area to manage. Wildlife inventories are still being built; what's published so far is the headline that this is snow-leopard country, and that the ecosystems are the same trans-Himalayan habitats that defined the parent park.
The trans-Himalayan apex predator. The Chhayanath landscape was identified as significant snow-leopard habitat in the documentation supporting its creation in 2025.
Solitary, crepuscular, vast home ranges across broken alpine terrain.
Blue sheep and other ungulates of the trans-Himalayan zone.
High-altitude broken terrain across the new park's area.
Vulnerable globally. The 2019–22 spatial-capture-recapture study of the parent park (Shey Phoksundo) modelled around 90 snow leopards at 2.21 per 100 km² — but that survey covered the full pre-2025 boundary, so what proportion of those animals now sit inside the new Chhayanath boundary is not yet broken out in a published source.
Chhayanath's creation was driven as much by local community access as by ecology: residents of Dolphu had previously needed to travel nearly a week on foot to reach Shey Phoksundo's offices. Giving the area its own park is intended to bring management and benefit-sharing closer to home.
Effectively impossible to see directly — and the park has essentially no visitor infrastructure yet.
The published descriptions cover 'alpine forests, high-altitude pastures, glacial rivers and rugged mountain terrain'. Detailed inventories will likely follow the park's first management plan.
Species pages
Long-form, sourced editorial on the species this park protects — their populations, their recoveries, the policy and the science behind them.
Plan Your Visit
Practical context for visitors arriving from another country — how to get here, how long to stay, what you'll actually see, and whether this park fits the trip you have in mind.
Chhayanath Rara is Nepal's newest national park — gazetted in 2025 by carving out the higher elevation zones of the Mugu and Humla districts adjacent to existing Rara National Park. International visitor infrastructure here is still developing. Approach is via the same route as Rara: Kathmandu → Nepalgunj → Talcha (small STOL aircraft), then onward overland. Independent visits without a Kathmandu-based operator are not yet practical.
For visitors who already know Nepal well and want a frontier-park experience, Chhayanath Rara extends the trekking horizon north of Rara Lake into landscape that previously sat outside the protected-area network. The park's headline conservation value is snow-leopard habitat connectivity between Rara and the Tibetan border — a landscape-scale corridor rather than a tourist destination in its current state.
Trekking-window logic mirrors Rara: September–November and March–May. Outside those windows, the high terrain is snow-bound and Talcha flights are unreliable. Confirm any planned route with a registered operator who has on-the-ground knowledge of the new park.
Chhayanath Rara is a frontier landscape park — visitor infrastructure is minimal and the experience is genuinely exploratory rather than guided-tour-ready.
Season note. Treat the entire visitor window as provisional and confirm route access with a registered operator before committing.
Chhayanath Rara was gazetted in 2025 and has no published entry fee on the Nepal Tourism Board's website at the time of writing. Visitor access, permit structure and route status are still being established. Confirm everything directly with the DNPWC and a registered trekking agency before planning a visit — independent trekking is not currently practical.
This entire section will be updated when DNPWC publishes formal fee and access rules for the new park.
Visitor Guide
Nepal's newest national park, gazetted in 2025 in the remote trans-Himalayan far west. Documentation is still developing, so treat details as provisional and confirm locally.
Newly established, with nascent visitor infrastructure — confirm everything locally before travel.
Detailed bird and plant inventories are still being compiled for this newly gazetted park.
Trans-Himalayan, with a Tibetan Plateau character. Fuller botanical surveys are still to come.
Accommodation options, which are minimal and still developing. Fees, hours and operators change — confirm current details with the DNPWC and Nepal Tourism Board before travelling.
Entry fees, regulations and opening arrangements (the park is newly established). Fees, hours and operators change — confirm current details with the DNPWC and Nepal Tourism Board before travelling.
Visitor-centre information (new park). Fees, hours and operators change — confirm current details with the DNPWC and Nepal Tourism Board before travelling.
Home to the Mugum Karmarong / Mugu communities.
Established on 29 August 2025 as Nepal's 13th national park (~843.36 km² plus a 177.37 km² buffer zone), carved from Shey Phoksundo National Park, near the Tibet border.
Tours and cultural programmes are still developing.
Operators and activities (new park). Fees, hours and operators change — confirm current details with the DNPWC and Nepal Tourism Board before travelling.
From the Journal
Thirteen parks, one extraordinary country.
