Jibhi & Tirthan Valley

Your Ettiq guide meets you at Bhuntar and you drive into the Tirthan valley as the afternoon light softens. The road follows the river upstream, past terraced fields and wooden Himachali houses with slate roofs. You settle into a riverside cottage where the only sound is water moving over stone. The evening walk takes you downstream past ancient walnut trees. Your first group meal is a home-cooked Himachali thali, sepu vadi and madra, served on leaf plates by the family that runs the homestay. After dinner, someone builds a fire by the riverbank. The sky is thick with stars. There is no phone signal here. You won't miss it.

Morning comes slow through the deodar canopy. Your guide leads you through the forest to Jibhi waterfall, a 40-foot cascade dropping into a deep green pool. The trail passes through a village where old men sit on verandas carving wood and women sort scarlet chillies on charpoys. Back at the cottage for lunch. The afternoon is yours to float in the river or sit on the rocks with a book. Optional trout fishing in the Tirthan, your guide arranges a permit and shows you the best pools. By evening, the group has gathered on the riverbank again. Campfire. Someone plays a guitar. The stars are brighter tonight.

Drive up through oak and rhododendron forest to Jalori Pass at 3,120 metres. The air changes as you climb, cooler, thinner, carrying the smell of pine needles and damp earth. From the pass, a 5-kilometre forest trail leads to Serolsar Lake. The walk is gentle, the path carpeted with fallen leaves, shafts of light cutting through the canopy. The lake appears as a sheet of deep green surrounded by ancient trees, no boats, no vendors, no crowd. Your Ettiq guide sets up a picnic by the shore, parathas and pickle and hard-boiled eggs, simple food that tastes better because of where you are. Afternoon is quiet, you walk the perimeter, find a spot to sit, or just watch the surface ripple. Back through the forest to Jibhi for dinner.

A morning walk through the buffer zone of the Great Himalayan National Park, a UNESCO site. Dense oak forest, shafts of early light, langurs moving through the canopy above. Your guide identifies bird calls, the Himalayan whistling thrush, the cheer pheasant if you are lucky. You walk through a village where the houses are built in the traditional Kathkuni style, interlocking timber and stone, no nails used. A local family serves lunch, madra and rajma and freshly made chapatis. The afternoon is a slow walk back through the orchards, stopping to talk to farmers. Dinner at the forest guesthouse, the only lights for miles are the ones we brought.

A last slow morning by the river. Your guide makes chai on the fire. You pack your bags, take the final group photo on the wooden bridge, and drive out of the valley. By midday you are at Bhuntar, back on the grid. Five days in a valley that has not asked anything of you except to be present.