Kalatop Sanc­tu­ary was rec­og­nized as a game sanc­tu­ary on 1 July 1949. It lies between ”’Dal­housie”’ and ”’Cham­ba”’ at the north­west­ern extrem­i­ty Daula Dhar. Dal­­housie-Cham­­ba Road runs through the sanc­tu­ary, which con­tains about 15 vil­lages. In 1982–1983, there was a total of 1766 peo­ple liv­ing inside the sanc­tu­ary.
This reserve cov­ers an area of 3,069 hectares. Its alti­tude varies from 1185 meters to 2768 meters (3910 ft-9134 ft.) The ter­rain is steep and typ­i­cal of the Out­er Himalayas. It is drained by sev­er­al trib­u­taries of the Ravi Riv­er which lies just to the north. There is a lake at Kha­jjiar. The tem­per­a­ture varies from ‑10AC to 35C. The mean pre­cip­i­ta­tion is 2,648 mm, one-fourth of which falls as snow.
Kha­jjiar, Kalatop, Dain Kund, Lakar­man­di, and Bara Pathar are the tourist attrac­tions in this sanc­tu­ary. From Gand­hi Chowk, a steep, uphill walk will take you to the scenic Bakro­ta Cir­cle. After walk­ing about 2 kilo­me­tres, the road to this sanc­tu­ary starts near the Munic­i­pal Water Resevoir.
Kalatop is at an alti­tude of 2440 metres, and it is 8.5 kilo­me­tres from the GPO. From Lakar­man­di, a jeep­able road through the dense for­est leads to the Kalatop For­est Rest­house. This is a per­fect spot for a week­end retreat. The panoram­ic views of Pir Pan­jal Range and coun­try­side are breath­tak­ing.