The local story
The valley that waters Kalimpong
Neora Valley is the wildest corner of the Kalimpong hills. The park was declared in 1986 to protect the forest around the upper Neora river, and it stretches from the edge of the Dooars plains at about 183 m to Rachela Danda, roughly 3,150–3,200 m, where West Bengal meets Sikkim and Bhutan's Samtse district. In that climb you pass from tropical forest through oak and magnolia to rhododendron, bamboo, hemlock and fir.
The Neora river that rises here is Kalimpong town's main source of water, which has given the town a practical reason to care about the forest. Because so much of the valley is steep and roadless, it has stayed thickly wooded, and wildlife that has gone from much of the Darjeeling hills survives here: Himalayan black bear, clouded leopard, leopard, serow, goral, sambar and the red panda.
For the Lepcha and other hill peoples, forests like Neora were sources of medicine, fodder and wild food long before they were national parks. Today villages such as Kolakham, Rishyap and Lava live on the park's edge, and many guides are villagers who grew up walking these slopes.
