Dzukou Valley

Dzukou is a broad upland valley at about 2,440 metres on the Nagaland-Manipur boundary, and its surface is the strange part: a dense dwarf bamboo that grows to knee height and no higher, so the hills roll away in a green baize that looks mown. A stream cuts a shallow gorge through the middle and freezes into ribbons of ice in January. The usual approach is from Viswema, twenty-five kilometres south of Kohima, where a rough track takes vehicles most of the way up and a stiff climb of an hour or two finishes the job; the older route from Jakhama is longer and rougher, and most trekkers use it as the way down.

At the top there is a rest house with dormitories, a kitchen, cold water and a queue for both, plus caves that trekkers have sheltered in for decades. Late June and July bring the Dzukou lily, a pale pink Lilium recorded nowhere else, along with rhododendrons, aconites and euphorbias; October and November bring clean air, hard frost at dawn and the sharpest views towards Japfu, at 3,048 metres the second-highest peak in Nagaland. Nothing is sold up here, and nothing is left behind either.

Everything you carry in, plastic included, has to come out with you, and open fires are banned after the blazes that scorched a large part of the valley in the winter of 2020.