Kalatop-Khajjiar wildlife santuary - Heaven in Himachal Pradesh, India

"Kalatop" @ Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh, India .... Are you even aware of this name?

O! Yes, If you are not a freaky traveler like me, then for obvious reason.. the chances are too little.

Folks ‘Kalatop’ is situated in Kalatop wild life Sanctuary in Himachal Pradesh ,India. The spot really commands a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape. One can see the hills, snow-capped mountains, the valleys, the hamlets, the greenery and the ruggedness standing from the place. Kalatop Sanctuary is an ideal retreat for both wildlife enthusiast and nature lovers due its picturesque landscape and stunning views of thick Pine and Deodar forests and surfeit of fauna viz. ghoral, black bear, barking deer, ibex, langur, jackal, flying squirrel, serow, red fox Himalayan Black Marten, leopard, Himalayan Bea and birds like Phasianus colchicus, Khaleej pheasant, monal and yellow-throated marten. There is a forest bungalow in the sanctuary which is surrounded by dense trees.

It is 1800 hrs and I am writing few lines about Kalatop while enjoying my hot coffee in the cold breeze is fingering my hair. Birds were singing me a duet and just let me drift for sundown is swift … I am enjoying each and every moments of the evening. Each second is laced with awesome feel.

The complete Kalatop bungalow is on a hill top surrounded by thick pine trees. The place is an unharmed, un-commercialized, less-frequented hill spot - as compared to the hill stations in India. Bungalow was constructed during colonial era and there are five rooms for tourist and two rooms for VIPs. The bungalow is encircled by big lawn. There is also a fire place in each room and all rooms have attached bathrooms with modern amenities and well maintained. There are two canteen which provide basic food items to the tourists.

I just love this place, not because of lavishness or not because of services rather it's purely because of exclusive pristine location & the awesome feeling about this Bungalow. Some good thing to do in Kalatop is to enjoy the nature by meditation in the lawn, doing yoga, reading book or taking a stroll around bungalow.

I would suggest to go for trekking during day time of your stay. There are 3-4 trails and all the treks are of temperate nature. If you have slightest of interests in Wild Life or birds, you must start your trails at very early morning, possibly before the sun rises.

Let me share my experience, we started around 1500 hrs from Khajiiar for kalatop and reached Lakarmandi. Guard at the Lakarmandi stopped our vehicle and informed that because of heavy snowfall we can’t take our car uphill to kalatop. It was utter disappointment as we have heard a lot about kalatop and missing this spot would be a waste of all our efforts. Suddenly my wife threw an idea to park car in the Lakarmandi parking bay and trek to Kalatop. Immediately our group consisting of two male and four female agreed to the idea and in 10 min everyone was ready for this adventure. The distance from Lakarmandi to the guest house is 3 KM. But it just got slipped out of our mind that the time was already 17:45 and it is going to be dark soon.

We started trekking and the snow was pretty heavy so we were not able to walk at pace and in the due course one female member of our group slipped over the snow which resulted in ankle cramp. It became completely dark in 40 min and we were in middle of jungle with just cell phone light with us.

It was extremely dense forest and there were strange sound coming from the surroundings. As we kept walking and suddenly some animal ran across the trail…don’t know what it was some four legged dog like creature. After watching this creature there was fear in every one heart and my wife literary shouted at me for putting their life in danger. Now look at the dilemma, it was she who threw this idea and now I am being blamed for all this mess.

Any way as I was being trained in the survival training (part of job) so I decided to take the lead in the trek and asked everyone to follow. I also made them clear that if any animal appear then we all have to hold our ground instead of running. Luckily we were carrying our barbeque along with some kerosene to light the barbeque charcoal. I took out my handkerchief and tied it broken branch of tree. I poured some kerosene on lit it with lighter to keep away animal specially Himalayan black bear (though I didn’t informed my group that there is possibility of bear faceoff). After walking a while…. bingo there was black moving animal just 150 meters right on our track. Although black bears tend to retreat from people but they are still incredibly strong animal. There was shiver in the group and they all just freezed.
I had no choice, so I kept walking on the track as I knew that bears are non-territorial. I still remember my trainer words that “Bears are non-territorial” This was being taught to me but I was thinking of the mental status of bear that whether s/he is also aware of the same. But as soon I approached near, because of fire in my hand bear ran away and I signaled my group to proceed.

Ever where there was white snow carpet and in night the whiteness of snow was glowing and it was looking very picturesque. We kept on walking and could not locate any light nearby so we thought that whether we are on right track or not. There was no telecom signal in the cell phones and hence we had to just proceed with our gut feel.
After walking for a kilometer at least there was turn in the jungle and as we passed through that turn there was light from long distance. You couldn’t believe it was such a joyous moment for all of us. After reaching at the gate of the kalatop bungalow, I slipped on the snow and injured my hand but no one cared that I slipped.. well I can understand their state of mind. We called for the caretaker and he navigated us to our hut. By the way the temperature was -10 degree centigrade and the bottle of Rum was the savior.

We woke up in the morning and it was just spectacular view of the mountains and the surrounding verdant area. The blissful ambience and the chirping of birds make Kalatop a secluded yet sought after vacationer spot.
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