Tyre tracks in fresh snow on the road near Lokhandi, above Chakrata, January 2017. Photo © RishabhSanta, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Where winter driving gets hard, how black ice forms and where it has caught drivers out, when you need snow chains for your car and how to fit them, fog on the plains, and how to find out whether a road is open before you set off.
The short answer: most winter days in Uttarakhand are dry, clear and easy to drive. The trouble comes in two forms. The first is the morning after snow, when the high roads to Auli, Chopta, Munsiyari, Chakrata, Harsil and the ridges above Nainital are shut for hours or days and shaded bends turn to ice. The second is fog on the plains between December and February, which closes in from late night to mid-morning. You only need snow chains on your car if you are going above the snow line right after a fall, and in the last three winters the police have usually run chain-fitted local taxis or allowed only four-wheel-drive vehicles on those stretches anyway. Check the forecast and the state public works department’s live list of closed roads before you leave, drive in daylight, and plan to be off the hill roads before dark.
By Nandini Upreti, Contributor, Almora. About the author ↓
The rest of this page describes how the last three winters went, because the same roads give trouble every year. These are this winter’s points so far; our Uttarakhand snowfall tracker adds each new fall and the roads it shuts as the season goes on.
Winter 2026-27 so far
Altitude decides almost everything. Haldwani, Ramnagar and the plains below them never see snow, and the main roads up to Nainital, Bhimtal, Almora and Ranikhet are rarely closed by it. The roads that shut are the ones that climb past about 2,000 metres: the ridges around Nainital (Kilbury, Pangot, Dhanachuli and Mukteshwar), the Thal to Munsiyari road over Kalamuni, Joshimath to Auli, the Ukhimath to Chopta road, the Chakrata ridge at Lokhandi, the Gangotri highway above Harsil and the roads around Dhanaulti. Our page on where it snows in Uttarakhand ranks each place by how often snow actually came in the last three winters.
On these roads a winter trip has a rhythm. Snow usually falls in the evening or at night. The next morning the police hold traffic while the PWD, the BRO or the district clears the road with JCBs, and by late morning or the afternoon the main stretches open again, often for four-wheel-drive vehicles first. The bends that stay in shade then freeze overnight. So the riskiest time to drive is the first clear morning after a fall, which is exactly when everyone wants to go and see the snow.
Three examples show the pattern. On 12 and 13 January 2025 snow closed four roads around Nainital: Barapathar to Kilbury and Pangot, Padampuri to Dhanachuli and Pahadpani, Bhatelia to Mukteshwar and Dhanachuli, and Okhalkanda to Khansyu; near Managher traffic stopped at about 6 am and was moving again by 11 am, Amar Ujala reported. On 23 and 24 January 2026, the first big snowfall of last winter, about 20 tourist vehicles were stuck near Kalamuni on the Munsiyari road after a foot of snow, the Ukhimath to Chopta road was blocked from Makku Band to Bhunkund with hundreds of tourists stranded, and by the evening of 24 January the state emergency operations centre counted 66 roads blocked across Uttarakhand, six of them national highways. And on 25 January 2026 about 30 km of the Chakrata to Tiuni road was still under snow, about three feet deep at Lokhandi and Koti Kanasar, with two JCBs and a snow cutter working through it.
Black ice is a thin, clear layer of ice on the road surface. It is not black at all: it is so thin and transparent that the dark tarmac shows through, which is why a road can look merely wet when it is frozen. In the hills it is called pala, the word also used for ground frost. It forms after a clear, cold night that follows rain, snowmelt or a burst water line, most often on bends that the sun does not reach, on bridges and on the north faces of ridges, and it is at its worst from before dawn until the sun has been on the road for an hour or two. Melting snow running across the road in the afternoon and freezing again after dark is the classic cause.
The reports from the last few winters name the same kind of places again and again. In Mussoorie, frost made vehicles skid on Camptee Road, at Hathi Paon, on Camel’s Back Road and at Bataghat in January 2026, and on 10 December 2024 a tanker slid on frost near Guru Nanak School. On the Joshimath to Auli road, which the PWD in Gopeshwar has long called the worst for frost, two army vehicles slipped off the road the same week, and in February 2025 BRO workers were spreading salt after a foot of snow at Auli. In December 2025 villagers on the Dugadda to Dhumakot road in Pauri asked for lime after vehicles started sliding. The worst outcomes are rare but real: on 20 December 2023 a car went into a gorge on a snow and frost covered road in Pithoragarh district and three people died, and on 27 January 2026 a car carrying seven snow tourists went off the road in Champawat district, where the SDRF brought them out.
The districts and the PWD spread salt and lime on the worst stretches, and an engineer in Gopeshwar once explained that salt melts pala almost at once. But they cannot cover every bend, so drive as if any shaded curve could be glazed. Uttarakhand’s traffic directorate gives the same advice every winter: keep a long gap to the car ahead, slow down on wet or frosted roads, and avoid sudden braking. In practice that means doing your braking on the straight before a bend, taking the bend in a low gear with no change of speed or steering mid-way, and, if the car begins to slide, easing off the brake and steering gently where you want to go. Set off after the sun is up, and plan to be down from the high road by about 3 or 4 pm, before the meltwater freezes again.
Most visitors never need chains. They help only on packed snow or ice, and only while you are on it; on bare tarmac they damage the road and the tyres. You are likely to want them in three situations: going to Auli, Chopta, Harsil, Munsiyari or the Chakrata ridge within a day or two of fresh snow; staying somewhere above the snow line when snow is forecast, so that you can get down again; and driving the ridge roads around Nainital and Mukteshwar on the morning after a fall.
Even then, the police often decide for you. In late December 2024 Rudraprayag police parked tourists’ cars at Dugalbitta and Baniyakund and sent visitors on to Chopta in local vehicles that had iron chains fitted. On 28 January 2026, beyond Sukhi Top on the Gangotri highway, only four-wheel-drive vehicles with non-skid chains were let through and small cars without chains were turned back. After snow at Auli in January 2025 and again in January 2026, only four-wheel-drive vehicles went beyond the TV tower. The state disaster authority’s avalanche guidance for areas above 3,000 metres, sent to the Chamoli district in December 2024, also told travellers to use four-wheel drive and anti-skid chains. We found no standing rule that every car must carry chains on any road in Uttarakhand; these are orders made on the day.
Where to buy them is the awkward part. We could not find a shop in Haldwani, Nainital, Bhowali, Munsiyari, Joshimath or Mussoorie that publicly lists snow chains for sale or for hire, so do not count on picking up a set on the way. Buy before you leave home, and make sure the size printed on the pack matches the size on your tyre wall (for example 185/65 R15). Indian online listings we checked on 3 November 2026 put a pair of basic steel chains for a car at about Rs 1,200 to Rs 3,500, with imported sets at Rs 8,000 to Rs 14,700 including duty; at the passes in Himachal, where hiring is common, a set costs Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 a day in peak season. Textile snow socks, which slip over the tyre like a cover, are easier to fit and fine for an occasional trip, but they wear through quickly on rock and tarmac. If you are not confident fitting chains in the cold, the cheaper answer is often to leave your car lower down and take a local taxi for the last stretch, as the Chopta shuttle shows.
Practise once at home, in daylight, on dry ground. Fitting chains for the first time on a dark, frozen roadside with traffic behind you is how fingers and tempers get hurt. Keep gloves, a torch, a mat or old sack to kneel on, and the chains’ instructions in the car. The usual sequence for a ladder or cable chain is below; follow your own set’s leaflet where it differs.
For anyone driving up from Delhi, the bigger winter risk is not snow but fog. From about December to February it settles over western Uttar Pradesh and the Tarai, thickest from late night to mid-morning; IMD’s long-term normals for Pantnagar count about ten fog days in December and fifteen in January. Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar are the two Uttarakhand districts hit hardest. On 2 November 2025, the first foggy morning of last winter, visibility near Rudrapur fell below 50 metres on the Kichha to Rampur, Bareilly and Nainital roads, vehicles drove with headlights on, and the fog lifted only around 9 am. On 18 January 2026 at least 20 vehicles piled up in fog on the Delhi to Lucknow highway in Bareilly district; one person died and 24 were hurt.
The fix is timing. Leave Delhi after the morning fog has cleared, so that you cross Moradabad, Rampur and Rudrapur in the middle of the day, reach Haldwani by late afternoon and go up the hill the next morning; our Delhi to Nainital guide compares the roads and the train. In fog, drive on low beam with fog lamps if you have them, never on high beam, keep well back from the vehicle ahead and stay in your lane. Uttar Pradesh cuts speed limits on its expressways in fog season, last winter to 60 km/h for cars at night from 19 December to 15 February, but those limits do not cover the highway to Haldwani, where you will need to set your own. If you arrive late, the hotels near Kathgodam station and in Haldwani are the closest beds below the hills.
Snow closes roads before it closes towns, and closures are decided day by day by the district police and administration, not by a calendar. Some districts add restrictions after accidents: in January 2025 Dehradun police stopped all vehicles going up from Kalsi to Chakrata after 10 pm in snow and frost, after a tourist car went into a gorge near Lokhandi, and on 3 March 2025 the Chamoli administration closed Auli to tourists until the weather cleared. Above Joshimath the Badrinath highway shuts beyond Hanuman Chatti in snow, and the Gangotri highway beyond Sukhi Top.
Check three things before you leave. First, the forecast: IMD’s Meteorological Centre in Dehradun issues district warnings with the height above which snow is expected, and a forecast of snow above 2,500 metres will reach Auli and Khaliya Top but probably not Nainital. Second, the roads: the Uttarakhand PWD keeps a live list of closed roads by district on its road closure page, with the kilometre, the time each road shut and the expected opening time; on 3 November 2026 it listed 12 roads fully closed and 8 partly open across the state. Third, the news, because the PWD list does not say why a road shut. Our snowfall tracker brings all three together and refreshes every morning at 5 am, with the snow reports, the official alerts and the PWD list on one page; in the monsoon, the landslide detector does the same for Kumaon’s landslides.
If you are already on the road and it is shut, do not try to drive round a police barrier or follow another car onto snow. Turn back to the last town with rooms, or wait it out: most roads open within a day once the sky clears. When the Munsiyari road was blocked at Kalamuni in January 2026, tourists stayed overnight in Munsiyari and Nachni and traffic was sent round by Madkot and Jauljibi.
We found no ban on motorcycles or scooters on any snow road in Uttarakhand, but a two-wheeler is the worst vehicle to meet black ice on: two tyres, no margin and a hard fall. Chains for motorcycles exist but are rare and fiddly. If you ride, keep to the lower roads, ride between late morning and mid-afternoon when the sun has been on the tarmac, and treat every shaded bend and every patch of meltwater as ice. For Auli, Chopta, Munsiyari or the Nainital ridges in snow, park the bike and take a taxi or shared jeep for the last stretch.
Driving yourself is fine for most winter trips, from Haldwani to Nainital, Bhimtal, Almora or Ranikhet on a clear day. For the high places after snow, a local driver is worth the money: they know which bends hold ice, which roads the police have shut, and when to wait. In Haldwani the rates we checked in May 2026 were Rs 14 a km for a non-AC sedan, Rs 16 for an AC sedan and Rs 20 to Rs 22 for an Innova, plus a driver’s allowance of Rs 300 to Rs 400 for each night away. At those rates a three-day sedan trip to Munsiyari and back, about 560 km, comes to roughly Rs 7,800 plus Rs 600 to Rs 800 in allowances, before tolls and parking. Our Haldwani cab guide has operators, round-trip fares and what to agree before you set off.
Save these before you leave; mobile signal can drop on the high roads. The district numbers are the control rooms listed by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority.
| Who | Number |
|---|---|
| Emergency (police, ambulance, fire) | 112 |
| State emergency operations centre, Dehradun | 1070, 0135-2710334 |
| District control room, from any district | 1077 |
| Uttarakhand Police traffic helpline | 7300702033 |
| NHAI highway helpline (tolled national highways) | 1033 |
| Nainital district control room | 05942-231179, 05942-231178 |
| Haldwani tehsil control room | 05946-250138 |
| Pithoragarh district (Munsiyari, Dharchula) | 05964-228050 |
| Chamoli district (Auli, Joshimath) | 01372-251437 |
| Rudraprayag district (Chopta, Kedarnath) | 01364-233727 |
| Uttarkashi district (Harsil, Gangotri) | 01374-222722 |
| Tehri district (Dhanaulti) | 01376-233433 |
| Dehradun district (Mussoorie, Chakrata) | 0135-2726066 |
A small winter kit makes a stuck hour bearable: a full tank (fuel pumps are few above Bhowali and Thal), warm clothes and a blanket, water and something to eat, a charged power bank, a torch, a towing rope and, if you are going high after snow, your chains. Keep the heater on in short bursts with a window slightly open rather than running the engine for hours in a parked car.
Not for the main road up from Haldwani in most winters; we found no report of snow closing the Haldwani to Nainital road in the last three winters. The roads around Nainital that do shut are the ridge roads to Kilbury and Pangot, Dhanachuli and Mukteshwar, for a morning or a day after heavy snow, as on 12 and 13 January 2025. If you plan to drive those the morning after a fall, carry chains that fit your tyres or take a local taxi.
We could not find a shop in Haldwani or Nainital that publicly lists snow chains for sale or hire, so buy a set that matches your tyre size before you leave home. Indian online listings in November 2026 put a basic steel pair for a car at about Rs 1,200 to Rs 3,500. On the roads where chains matter most, such as the one to Chopta, police have in past winters parked visitors’ cars and run chain-fitted local taxis instead.
Black ice is a thin, clear layer of ice on the road that lets the dark tarmac show through, so a frozen road looks only wet. In the hills it is called pala. It forms on shaded bends, bridges and north-facing slopes after a clear, cold night that follows rain or melting snow, and is worst from before dawn until the sun has been on the road for an hour or two.
It can be on a clear day, but it is the riskiest of the Kumaon drives in January. The road climbs over Kalamuni, where about a foot of snow stranded some 20 tourist vehicles on 23 and 24 January 2026 and traffic was sent round by Madkot and Jauljibi. Check the forecast and the PWD road list the day before, cross Kalamuni in the middle of the day, and if snow is forecast, wait a day or hire a local driver.
The Uttarakhand PWD keeps a live list of closed roads by district on its road closure page, with the time each road shut and the expected opening time. For anything it does not show, call 1077 for the district control room, 1070 for the state emergency operations centre or 112 in an emergency. Our snowfall tracker puts the PWD list, the official alerts and the snow reports on one page every morning.