Ganga Choti Camping: Tents Below the Summit

For Ganga Choti camping, most people pitch their tents on the open meadows below the 3,045-metre summit, not on the narrow, windy top, and walk up in the dark for sunrise. June and September are the best months: nights near the top average about 5 to 6°C, and the monsoon rain of July and August has not yet arrived or has passed. Expect a cold night even in midsummer, and carry your own water from Sudhan Gali.

Ganga Choti is a peak in Bagh District, Azad Kashmir, about 8 km uphill from the village of Sudhan Gali. Our Ganga Choti trek guide covers the route and the jeep option; this page is about the night out.

Where can you camp on Ganga Choti?

There are three realistic choices, and each changes the shape of the trip:

1. On the meadows below the summit ridge. This is the usual camp: open, grassy ground with space for several tents and a short walk to the top before dawn. It is exposed, so choose a hollow or the lee of a slope rather than the most open spot.
2. In Sudhan Gali. Some visitors rent a room or pitch near the village at about 2,100 metres, where it is warmer and sheltered, and start in the small hours. The catch is the length of that walk in the dark (see below). Our guide to hotels in Sudhan Gali covers rooms.
3. On the summit. Possible but a poor choice: the top is narrow, there is little flat ground, and it takes the full force of the wind and any storm.

There is no organised campsite with toilets or rubbish collection that we could confirm, so plan to be self-sufficient.

How cold are the nights?

We pulled ten years of modelled weather (2016 to 2025, ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo) for the summit at 3,045 metres. A model smooths out the extremes of a single ridge, so treat these as typical figures, and expect the wind to make it feel colder.

Camps on the meadows sit a few hundred metres lower than the summit, which usually makes them a degree or two milder. Even so, a sleeping bag rated to around 0°C is the sensible minimum from June to September. In May and October, more nights are below freezing than not near the top, which turns a summer camp into a cold-weather trip.

Rain, storms and wind

The rain figures matter more than the temperatures. July and August bring rain on most days in the monsoon, often as afternoon and evening thunderstorms. An open ridge is a bad place to be in lightning, and a wet night in a cheap tent at this height is miserable. June and September give the best balance of warm nights and dry weather; October is the clearest month but the coldest.

The modelled daily peak gust averages 30 to 40 km/h through the season, and exposed ridges see more. Pitch with every guy line pegged out, put the narrow end of the tent into the wind, and do not leave a tent unattended and unweighted on the open meadow during the day.

Water and what to carry

Do not count on a reliable spring above Sudhan Gali. Flow on high ground varies with the season and can dry up late in summer, so fill everything in the village. As a guide, allow about 2 litres per person for the climb, another litre or two for the evening and cooking, and a litre for the morning. Carry a filter or purification tablets in case you do find running water.

Beyond the usual kit, bring:

• A tent that copes with wind, not a festival tent.
• A sleeping mat as well as the bag; the ground takes more heat than the air.
• A stove, rather than relying on a fire; keep any fire small and never leave it.
• Headtorches with spare batteries for the walk in the dark.
• Rubbish bags. There is no collection on the mountain, so bring everything down.

Timing the sunrise walk

Sunrise times for Ganga Choti, calculated for a flat horizon. On the summit you see the sun a few minutes earlier; hills to the east can hide it for a few minutes longer.

To work out when to leave camp, use Naismith's rule, the standard hill-walking estimate: about 12 minutes per kilometre plus 10 minutes for every 100 metres of climb, then add a third for walking in the dark and at altitude.

So for a 1 July sunrise from a camp about an hour's walk below the top, leave at about 3:45 am to allow for a slow start. From Sudhan Gali you would need to set off around midnight, which is why most sunrise walkers camp high.

Getting to the start

Sudhan Gali is about 22 km from Bagh and about 56 km from Muzaffarabad by road, and about 174 km from Islamabad via Murree, Kohala and Bagh on OSRM routing. The driving times that routing software gives are far too optimistic for these mountain roads, so leave early and aim to reach Sudhan Gali with daylight to spare. Our route guide from Islamabad to Sudhan Gali has the details, and our Sudhan Gali weather guide covers the village month by month.

Is it safe to camp here?

There are two kinds of risk. The mountain ones are cold, storms and walking an exposed ridge in the dark; the advice above deals with those, and the rule is simple: if cloud or wind closes in overnight, skip the summit.

The other is security. The summit is about 10 km in a straight line from Chakothi, the crossing point on the Line of Control, which almost certainly puts it inside the 10-mile zone where the UK advises against all travel; Sudhan Gali, about 14 km from Chakothi, is close to its edge. The rest of Azad Kashmir carries advice against all but essential travel. Protests from June 2026 were the deadliest unrest in the territory for years, with at least 24 dead in the first two weeks, and the AJK government asked tourists to stay away from 5 to 20 June. Mobile and internet services were cut for more than 50 days.

Pakistani visitors do camp here. Check local news and police advice before setting out, tell someone your plan because signal may be cut, and follow any instructions from security personnel. Overseas visitors should know their own government's advice may say not to go, which can void travel insurance. Our Azad Kashmir safety guide has more.

Who should camp, and who should not

Camping suits fit groups with proper gear who want the sunrise without a midnight start. It does not suit families with young children, anyone with a cheap tent and a thin sleeping bag, or anyone going in July and August without a plan for storms. For them, a room in Sudhan Gali and a daytime walk to the summit is the better trip. If you are new to camping at altitude, start with our trip planning page and build up to it.

Frequently asked questions