The Hidden Mile / New Year
New Year up here
Cold after dark, brilliant by day, and a road that carries a year’s worth of traffic in one afternoon. What the last week of December is actually like on this ridge — including what we do not put on.
New Year is the one week of the year when the hills above Mussoorie stop being quiet, and it is worth knowing which version of it you are buying before you book. This is not the week to arrive without a plan and expect to find a room.
What the last week of December is actually like up here
Cold, first of all — properly cold after dark, in a way a day in Mussoorie does not prepare you for. We are at about 2,250 m and the temperature drops the moment the sun goes off the ridge, usually in the middle of the afternoon. The days, though, are frequently brilliant: thin, clear light, very long views, and almost no haze.
Snow is a maybe, not a promise. Anybody who tells you otherwise in advance is selling you something. What we can tell you honestly is what it is like when it does arrive, and that is on snow near Dhanaulti and Dhanaulti in winter.
The road, which is the part people get wrong
The last week of December puts more cars on the Mussoorie–Dhanaulti road than any other week, and they all arrive in the same four-hour window on the 30th and 31st. Two things follow. Leave Delhi earlier than you think you need to — before dawn, not after breakfast. And if there has been snow, the stretch above Mussoorie can be slow or briefly closed while it is cleared; carry the patience and a warm layer for the car rather than assuming the timing on your maps app.
The full set of routes, with the honest timings, is on how to reach us.
What we do and do not do
We are eight rooms and a cafe on a hillside. There is no gala dinner, no DJ and no ticketed party, and there will not be one. What there is: the kitchen open late, somewhere warm to sit, and a hillside with no town glow on it, which on a clear 31st of December is a genuinely better place to be at midnight than a ballroom.
If a party is what you want from New Year, book Mussoorie. We would rather say that now.
Booking it
This week goes first and it goes early. Rates for the New Year dates are not the same as our ordinary published rates, and rather than print a number here that may not be the one that applies to your nights, message us with your dates and we will tell you exactly what it costs and what is still free. If you are reading this in autumn, you are in good time. If you are reading it in the third week of December, message us anyway — cancellations happen.
Ask about New Year dates
Tell us which nights you are after. We will tell you honestly what is still free and exactly what it costs for those dates.
Ask about New Year