Its almost certainly all changed since 2015 so read these notes, then ignore them.

Getting there

Bus from KTM leaves about 5pm and arrives in Dhuran at about 6am. You then need to hire a Jeep to Num. You can do this when you arrive in Duran. In 2012 Mike got a jeep all the way to Num for about £300. We paid 28,000 rupees and changed vehicles in Hile – you certainly need a serious off road vehicles for this journey. It’s about 10 hours of driving from Duran to Num.

Num

There is one guest house in Num that seems to take westerners. You’ll probably end up there. We needed to check in with the police with our trekking permits and passports at Num which was hassle free. Num is about 500m above the river and the are building a road bridge (probably a hydro scheme) at river level. Num marks the start of the the classic Arun Gorge section.

Porters

Unfortunately you can’t hire porters in Num – or atleast I think you’ll be lucky to. We arranged porters via Mahindra at equator Expeditions. We paid 20 USD a day and had to pay for their a few days either side of when they were with us for their travel. This price also included a guide.

Getting to the river

There is a road down to the river so you best bet is to arrange for the Jeep that took you to Num to take you down there. You may be able to persuade a vehicle in Num to take you down. If you walk, then find the footpath that goes down rather than follow the road as it’s much quicker. It took us just under and hour to walk down with only light packs.

Above Num

We trekked up with porters to a few KM above the confluence with the Barun Khola. We left Num at about 9am on day and arrived in Pathibra at about 3/4 pm. The next day with made it to Barun Dovan for about 2pm. We then spent the afternoon trying to inspect the Barun Khola. There are places to stay and eat all the way up. You need to pay 3,000 rupees each when you entre the national park.

Above Barun confluence

The path starts to leave the river a few KM above the confluence so we put on and had a easy class 3/4 paddle back to the confluence and spent the night there. To go any higher would take several more days of trekking before the path joins the river again. We herd from Andy Sommer that it was very steep and arduous on the river. This may well have change (for better or worse) since then tough.

The river from Barun Confluence to Num
It took us a day and a half to reach Num. There was one big definite  portage which we reached at about 1pm. It look 2 hours. You can see it from the walk up. There was also another significant portage which may get run by some groups at some levels. Bits of it were certainly runnable. It took us about an hour or so.
NB – we had 7 days of food and were double loading portages. I would suggest leaving enough food for the gorges at the bridge Num.
In between these portages there is a combination or great read and run, a few inspections and perhaps a few simple portages.

The Barun Khola

We initially intended to hike directly to the start of the river over Shiptons pass (4100m) and several other high passes. However when we arrived in Num there was too much snow on the pass and the tea house owners had all come down. Apparently it was knee to waste deep snow.
Our plan B was to hike up the Arun then up the Barun. However about 50m above the confluence with the Barun it entres and inescapable gorge and you can just a bout get glimpses of some unrunable water falls. We walked up both banks for a few hours and didn’t even come close to seeing the gorge, let alone the river. There is a footpath on the map river right which isn’t really there, or at least we couldn’t find it. It would involve bushwalking up to at least 700m above river before you will stand a chance of finding out what the river is like higher up. All this with knowing that the river ends with an unrunable waterfall at the bottom of an inescapable gorge.
Personally I would rather spend the time going higher on the Arun next time.

The Arun Gorges

This is pretty well documented. We left the Num bridge one morning and arrived in Chatara at about 10am on the 4th day. We then got a jeep back to Dharan (about an hour) then the night bus back to KTM. Camping a bit above the sun kosi / Arun confluence and getting an early start gets you to Duran in time for the night bus back to KTM.

Suggestion

There is a road bridge soon after the gorges finish – why not meet a jeep hear and got back to Num for another run? Or you could get out here and save some of the flat but flat paddling is cheaper and nicer than bouncing around in a Jeep.