Our journey, which we organized through inntravel working in collaboration with an Indian non-governmental organization called Village Ways (more on both of these later), was about to start as we were dropped by taxi at the Khali Estate in the Binsar Sanctuary. This is where the walking started.

Our first walks were through the Binsar Sanctuary, from Khali to Dalar, Rinsal and then on to Sartri; villages inaccessible by road. The valley floors are terraced for crops: wheat and barley when we were there, rice in the wet season and there are villages and towns dotted along the valley roads and spreading up into the lower hills.

The hills themselves are blanketed in forest of Pine: Pinus roxburghii. This is a dry time of year here and it has been a particularly arid winter so the layer of pine needles burns like tinder and much of the pine woodland was either on fire or had been recently burnt. The air here was smoky and the views limited. The locals say the fires are started by accident. My guess is that at least some are started on purpose so that the flush of grass that follows fires can be used by the flocks of cattle that are taken up into the hills to graze.