Kashmir Alpine Lakes And Meadows Trek

From Srinagar, we board to cab to Shitkadi - the road head for the trek. Shitkadi is just 4 km before more popular place of Sonamarg. Starting early from Srinagar isn't a bad idea at all as you may take some valuable time out to visit Sonamarg, the Thajiwas glacier and also relish some of the Kashmiri Wajwan in Sonamarg. Similarly, you can also take some time to wander around the streets of Srinagar and then start late for your drive to Shitkadi. 

Once you reach our Shitkadi, one of our team member will guide you to our beautiful camp site with a hot welcoming Kawa - the local way !

In the evening, we will give more details on the trek and issue personal equipment to be used in the trek and returned after finishing it.

After a good night's sleep, we wake up to a lovely morning in the Paradise of Kashmir. The views outside are just perfect and gets the shutterbug busy right away. The beautiful bright sun greets you with a warm smile. The Thajiwas Glacier surrounded by its sharp rocky peaks shines bright with the morning rays. Far at a distance, the rays of light create a magic passing through the clouds and the conifers to touch the lush green meadow. The horses join hands to further add to the view grazing around.

Its very easy to get lost here, so we remind you of our trek for the day and serve you the much needed - hot and tasty breakfast. Soon we find ourselves on the trail. As we start the trek, we straightaway start to climb up a steep zig -zag route under the covers of the conifers and open meadow at times to reach Shekdur. It takes us little less than 2 hours to reach Shekdur which is marked by a uniquely bent birch tree as if stretching itself to touch its toe, or offering its back to take you on a horse ride. There is a make shift tea cum maggi stall in Shekdur where we break for some rest.

After some rest and light snacking we again hit the trail which now gradually climbs down through the forest to take us to the Nichnai riverside. We need to be careful on some patches of this trail as we would be walking over wet / dry leaves which can be slippery. After a little more than a hour, we reach the riverside and a flat rock bed, which is an excellent place to break for lunch. Do remember not to spoil the river water.

The trail now climbs up gradually winding up through the boulders and humps to get us to the base of Nichnai Pass. We pass by multiple campsites and choose our campsite to the best interest of the team and its objectives.

The day starts with a full hearted motivation to cross the first barrier ahead in front of us, and thats the Nichnai Pass. The trail gradually climbs up to the pass top after crossing the Nichnai river over a snow bridge. A continuous push for about an hour and a half takes us to the top of the pass. Just before reaching the pass top, beneath the pass, look out for a lake which is shaped like India's map on your left. This is the first lake we view, and unnamed lake which we named it The India Lake.

From the pass top, the surrounding views are beautiful, if not cloudy. Early July can have good snow and make  the descend exciting. It offers good trekking challenge in getting yourself down for the pass. After some careful steps, the route eases out soon and its then a long leisure walk on the lush green meadow to our campsite beside the Vishansar Lake.  

The route is long and keeps easing out maing it a walk on flat plane ground. We choose a suitable place to have our packed lunch nearby a water source. We walk further on the flat ground which brings us to a vast table land with a soft velvet of green grass cover. After crossing the table land, we find a route going straight and the other one takes a left turn. A beautiful black peak named Vishansar peak by the locals allures your heart and excites you to go closer to it. Its on your left. As soon as you take the left turn, your campsite is visible, but at a far distance. We cross the stream which comes out of the Vishansar lake and camp beside the Vishanshar river on a flat ground, just 10 minutes before the Visharsar lake.

The Vishansar lake campsite is big enough to play football or a volley ball game. Also, the Vishansar lake and river is full of the rare Himalayan trout fish. Evening, we take an excursion to the serene Vishansar lake. If you schedule your trek by fullmoon, its much better as you can spend more time and click even better photos.

We had an amazing day today. We have worked hard and deserve a lovely dinner to get into those warm comfortable sleeping bags, with good memories of the day. The idea of going through your photos of the day isn't bad at all. Do not hesitate to do so if you have enough batteries t power it till the end of the trek, as the coming days are going to be even more rewarding.

Good Night ! 

We wake up to an exciting morning and today as we are all geared up to take the challenge of crossing the Gadsar pass. This is the highest altitude of this entire trek. The route was visible right from our campsite of Vishansar Lake - a narrow pencil mark of switch backs climbing up on a barren, rugged brown mountain.

The route passes by the twin lakes of Vishansar and Kishansar before we hit the steep switch backs to climb up to the top of Gadsar Pass. The climb can get challenging and need a good motivation. First rule - concentrate on the next steps and take some time to be appraised by thesurrounding views. Once you are on the mountain, do keep an eye back to view both the lakes of Vishansar and Kishansar together, looking like two eye balls. The black shiny dome of the Vishansar peak motivates you enough and keeps your tiredness at a bay.

An effort of some 2 hours or a little more, and you stand on the top of the pass. Here you are High, the views get you higher. After all you are on the highest point on this trek !!. We spend some good time and then start to tackle our downhill climb. Snow helps us an easy climb down and soon we reach the flat trails again.

Three lakes are seen from the pass top and as we keep getting down, the amazingly interesting shiny black wall of mountain continuously catches your attention. Mix of snow on the black rocks makes it look curious and appealing. Once the descend gets over, we land on a flat meadow following a stream. Walking on the flat zig-zag trail, we reach the scary looking Gadsar Lake and rightly so. The locals fear it and name it Yamsar and do not go near to it, believing that its the lake of 'Yamraj' - the God Of Death as per the Hindu belief.

We break for lunch before Gadsar by the side of a stream which adds water to the mighty Gadsar Lake. This land is full of colourful flowers of yellow and purple. Do remember to refill your waterbottles as after this point you will find no water source untill you reach the campsite, or the Army camp before reaching our campsite.

The trail is straight forward and is a easy walk which leads to our campsite, near to the Indian Army Camp. They are very friendly and will confirm our identity here. 15 more minutes, and we reach our campsite.

Its been a long but rewarding day today. We are served hot snacks with coffee and then some nice tasty dinner to give us that comfortable, cozy sleep.

A day filled with Lakes.. yes, you cross by atleast 5 lakes of Satsar before you reach your campsite, and on reaching the campsite, two huge lake of Nandkul and Gangabal greets you with an air filled with booster energy.

We start the day by crossing a snow bridge which often remains throughout the season, due to a continuous shadow over it. We then need to traverse the mountain and follow its bodily turn to the left with which we enter a new valley. The trail remains simple for the first hour before coming across few switch backs to cross. Soon, we cross the first lake and other lakes of Satsar starts to pass by one after another. We pass by an Army camp where we re-validate our identities and share a friendly bond. We offer them some sweets which we carry to gift them some homely feeling.

The lakes keep coming and a right turn by the side of the fifth lake brings us to a lovely campsite of Mainghandob. Other teams camp here and it just takes about 3 hours of good walk to be here. We will skip this campsite and utilize our day more efficiently and tactically to explore the Gangabal area which are full of lakes, where only the wandering souls of the shepherds visit. We have lunch in Mainghandob, or we can also have it after crossing the Zach pass which is about 2 and a half more hours from here.  

The route to the Zach Pass top adds to our adventure as we need to cross a boulder zone and requre safe steps. We will cross the river in front of us and the negotiate the boulder zone which takes about an hour to cross. We do have an alternate route which the horsemen use but that's a very long one.

After the boulder zone, our trail gradually climbs up to the Zach pass, occasionally zig-zacking in between. It takes about 2 hour and a half to be on the top of Zach Pass from Mainghandop.

From the Pass top, 3 lakes are visible whereas there are some about 9 lakes in the area. The three lakes are Gangabal, Nandkul and Koulsar from right to left. Its now time to negotiate a steep winding descend from the Zach Pass to the plain meadow of Gangabal. In couple of hours from here, we reach our camp by the side of Gangabal lake. It is here where the marmots are excited by your presence and continuously teases you by calling. But when you go nearer, the swiftly get into their hidden home underground.

Shoksar ( the lake of grief), Khushsar ( the lake of happiness ) are 2 lakes beside each other divided by a small mountain ridge. Its a straight climb up from our campsite besides the lake of Gangabal.

We first approach Shoksar and then cross over to Khushsar. From Khushsar, a straight long and a little rough walk take us to the lake of Baribal sar.

We return back to Gangabal to rest out the night. Evening here is just a wonderful place to be.

Previous day we explored the Northen lakes of the Gangabal lake, today we will explore the North Eastern Lakes - name Atmas, Kalesar and Poshsar by the locals

It involves climbing up a small hill straight in front of us following a stream. We then turn left where the Kalesar lake is. To the right is the Poshsar. At a little more distance, is the Atmas lake. We head back to Gangabal and if we make it to Gangabal in good time, we may also move to Nandkul lake and camp beside it, just for a change and rest out the night.

Today, we might chose to end our trek by getting to Naaranag from Nandkul Lake and then to Srinagar, or we can extend it to witness few more beautiful lakes of the area and then the beautiful Malish Meadow. 

We pass by two besutiful lakes of Nandkul and Koulsar which we had seen from the top of Zach Pass.

Today, we trek down to the settlement of Chartagul, near to Kangan and then we drive further to Srinagar bringing an end to a beautiful trek.