Best months for Kashmir and Himachal

"When should we go?" is the first question on every Kashmir and Himachal enquiry, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you want to see, because the two are different places that happen to share a word — hills — in a Vadodara conversation. Kashmir is a high valley with real winters and a spring that lasts three weeks. Himachal is a staircase of valleys from the Punjab plain to the Tibetan plateau, and at any given moment one of them is having good weather.

Here is the calendar as we plan it, month by month, with the honest parts left in.

Kashmir

December to February — snow. Gulmarg is the reason: the gondola to Kongdoori and Apharwat, snow to the door of the hut, and the sight of a Gujarati family on a sledge for the first time. Srinagar is cold, the lake is still, the houseboats run heaters, and the Mughal gardens are bare. Flights from Ahmedabad via Delhi are the cheapest of the year. Go if snow is the point. Do not go if anyone in the party struggles with cold; the days are five degrees and the nights are well below zero, and power cuts in Srinagar are normal in January.

March — the in-between. Snow at Gulmarg is still good in early March and the gondola runs; Srinagar begins to thaw; the almond blossom at Badamwari comes and goes in a week. The roads to Pahalgam and Sonamarg are open but the meadows are brown. Prices are low. A fair month for a couple; a hard one for children.

April — tulips. The Indira Gandhi tulip garden opens for about three weeks, usually the first three of April, and it is the most photographed thing in the valley for good reason. Gulmarg still has snow at the top, the gardens are green, the lake is busy. This is the month we book earliest, because everyone in India books it: flights and hotels for the tulip window are full by February.

May and June — the classic season. Everything is open: Pahalgam and the Betaab and Aru valleys, Sonamarg and the Thajiwas glacier walk, the gondola with meadows below instead of snow, shikara rides in the evening. Twenty-five degrees in the day, cool at night. This is when Vadodara travels, in the school holidays, so Srinagar is at capacity and the Pahalgam roads are slow. Book by March; a Kashmir package in June is not a last-minute trip.

July and August — the monsoon, sort of. Kashmir gets less of the monsoon than the rest of India and the valley is at its greenest. The Amarnath yatra runs, which fills Pahalgam and puts security on the roads. Afternoon rain, landslides on the Jammu road, occasional flight disruption. Good value, real risk of a wasted day; we say so.

September and October — the second season, and our favourite. The crowds have gone, the light is clear, the chinar trees turn in October and the apple harvest is on. Twenty degrees, cold nights by mid-October. The gondola runs. If you can travel outside the school holidays, this is when to see Kashmir.

November — closing. The first snow falls at Gulmarg, the gardens close, the houseboats thin out. A quiet, cold month that some people love.

Himachal

Himachal has three altitudes and each has its own calendar.

Shimla, Dharamshala, Dalhousie (1,500–2,000 m). Pleasant from March to June and again in September and October; cold and occasionally snowy December to February; wet in July and August. Shimla in May is the most crowded hill station in India, and we plan around it — arriving on weekdays, staying in Kufri or Naldehra rather than the Mall.

Manali and the Kullu valley (2,000 m). The same seasons, with the difference that Manali is the gateway to the high passes and the Atal tunnel has made Solang and Sissu a day trip year-round. Snow at Solang from December to February; apple blossom in April; the river high and cold in June. July and August are the monsoon months when the road up from Mandi is prone to closures — the one month we actively steer families away from Manali.

Spiti, Kinnaur and the high valleys (3,500 m and above). Open June to September, full stop. The Kunzum pass and the Manali side close with the first snow in October and the only way in during winter is the long Kinnaur road, which is an expedition, not a holiday. If Spiti is the dream, it is a summer trip, and it is an acclimatisation trip: two nights in Manali or Kalpa before the altitude, and we do not shorten that for anyone.

Kasol, Tirthan, Jibhi (1,500 m). The slow valleys. Good from March to June and September to November; green and wet in the monsoon in a way some people travel for. Our Kasol and Tirthan week runs spring and autumn.

The months to avoid

• July and August for anything above Mandi. Roads close. It is not a matter of if.
• Diwali week for Shimla and Manali. Every hotel is full and priced accordingly; the Mall is a queue. Kashmir in Diwali week is, oddly, quieter — the Gujarati crowd goes to Himachal because it is closer by road.
• Late April to early May for Kashmir if you cannot cope with crowds. Tulips and school holidays overlap.

A Vadodara family's practical calendar

If you have one trip a year and it has to be in the school holidays: Kashmir in the last week of May, booked in February, flights from Ahmedabad. If you can travel in October: Kashmir in the first half of the month, or Manali and Shimla in the second, when the apple trucks are on the roads and the hotels have space. If snow is the point: Gulmarg in January, dressed for it, or Manali and Solang in late December, which is closer and cheaper and enough snow for most families.

The Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh pages carry the packages we run in each season; the desk will tell you plainly which month suits the people you are travelling with.