Nag Tibba has been a winter favorite in the trekking community for quite some time now. There are various reasons for this. Proximity to Delhi is one of them. An overnight journey to Dehradun and an additional drive of 3-4 hours (80 kms) brings you to Pantwari, the base village of Nag Tibba trek. Popular perception is that Nag Tibba is a 2 day trek. We don’t deny that at all but we still hold a slightly different take on the matter. If you are in a rush, the trek can easily be done in 2 days, no doubt. BUT if you are not pressed for time and can invest an additional day in this journey, we guarantee that the returns will outweigh the investment by a fat margin.
Allow us to elaborate.
Here’s the most popular itinerary followed by most of us:
Day 1: Reach Dehradun in the morning, take a cab to Pantwari. Once there, drive on the motorable dirt road for 3kms to the trailhead. The first camping site is just an hour (or lesser for those who sprint on trekking trails!) away from here. You camp just before the forest area - the entire terrain is mostly barren.
Trek for the day finishes even before it starts (without great views). Even if you give the 3 km drive a miss and start trekking from Pantwari, the trail is still pretty featureless and the views mostly missing.
Day 2: Start early to trek up to the summit of Nag Tibba. It is mostly an uphill climb. Views start to open up only in the last one hour of the trek before the summit. You reach the summit by noon. If you have to reach back to Dehradun the same day, you can spend a maximum of an hour on the top. Reach back to Pantwari by sundown and then catch a cab to Dehradun.
Not only the time you get to spend on the top is limited but also, reaching the summit in the afternoon is not the best if you are here for grand views including the full face of Nanda Devi. The afternoon light turns everything hazy.
(If you plan to do Nag Tibba on your own, here (link the Nag Tibba Do it yourself guide) is all the information you need.)
Now, let us tell you about the alternative itinerary which is lesser known but more rewarding.
Day 1 – Start from Dehradun by around 5:00 AM – the last Volvo from Delhi reaches Dehradun at around the same time. Accounting for an hour’s break for breakfast, you should be at the end of the dirt road by 10:30 AM. The trail to the Nag Mandir campsite stretches over 5.5 kms and will take approximately 4-5 hours to cover. It begins with 2kms of an uphill trudge on a cemented path that goes through the village market. Soon this path gives way to a rocky uneven trail.
All along, one can enjoy the mesmerising views of layered mountains, the small village of Pantwari lying down in the valley below & patches of farmlands on the way.
The next 1-1.5kms is a dry and narrow shepherd’s trail with gradual ascents and descents. After this the trail nosedives into a dense canopy of Oak and Rhododendron forests which allow only a little sunlight in. The red and pink flowers of rhododendrons don’t bloom in the winters.
The path inside the forest is snow-laden in some sections. After trekking for 1 km, the forest finally opens up to a small patch of land. A structure of a temple sits at the heart of this clearing. This is the famous Nag Mandir, campsite for Day 1.
The campsite offers panoramic views of a snow-covered Himalayan range at the horizon.
The sunsets and starlit night skies are lovely at this campsite. The temperatures can dip down to -7 degrees in the winters.
