Bhagsu waterfall and temple
A twenty-metre fall behind the old Bhagsunag temple, with the café terraces of Upper Bhagsu stacked above it.
- Distance
- About 1.4 km, roughly 20 minutes downhill on foot
- Effort
- An easy walk out; the return is uphill
- Best time
- Early morning for quiet; the monsoon for the fall at full force
Bhagsunag temple is an old Shiva temple with a bathing tank, and the waterfall (about twenty metres) sits behind and above it, twenty to thirty minutes further on foot. It is the standard half-day walk from Dharamkot and one of the few things here that genuinely gets crowded.
Two pieces of advice worth taking. Go at seven in the morning and you can have it more or less to yourself. And do not write off the monsoon: July and August are when the fall is at its most dramatic, which is precisely when the rest of Dharamkot is at its quietest.
Above the falls, reached by a flight of prayer-flag-lined steps, Shiva Café is perched on the rocks and has been there long enough to be an institution. It runs late and it is not the quiet end of the valley, which some evenings is exactly the point.
While you're here
The Triund trek
The ridge walk everyone comes to Dharamkot for: about six kilometres up from the Gallu trailhead, with the Dhauladhar on one side and the Kangra valley on the other.
Gallu Devi temple
A small ridge temple among the cedars, the Triund trailhead, and the best short sunset walk from the village.
Yoga and meditation
Three of the best-known centres in the Indian Himalaya are within a ten-minute walk. All three need booking well ahead, and two of them close for the winter.