Trishuli

The Trishuli is a Tibetan river by birth: it forms where the Kyirong Tsangpo and the Lende Khola, both rising in Tibet's Gyirong (Kerung) County, meet near the Rasuwa Gadhi border fort — more than 60% of its 4,640 km² upper catchment lies north of the border. By faith, though, its source is Gosainkunda: legend holds that Shiva drove his trident (trishul) into the mountainside to release three springs, and the sacred lake at 4,380 m in Rasuwa — a Ramsar site since 2007 — is held to melt into the river that carries the trident's name.

From Rasuwa the river runs south past Nuwakot's old hill capital and Betrawati, then swings west below the Prithvi Highway to Mugling, where the Marsyangdi joins; at Devghat it meets the Kali Gandaki and the combined river becomes the Narayani.

Its accessibility is its fame. An easy drive from both Kathmandu and Pokhara, with long stretches of forgiving grade III water beside the highway, the Trishuli is Nepal's most rafted river — the standard first river trip for visitors and locals alike.

It is also one of the country's oldest and densest hydropower corridors: the state-built Trishuli and Devighat stations near Nuwakot were among Nepal's earliest plants, the 60 MW Upper Trishuli 3A has joined them, and a cluster of projects is under construction on the upper river and its Rasuwa headstem toward the Tibet border.