I had plans to go to Skardu valley this year but some of my friends are demanding for Kaghan valley. I have been to Kaghan valley 2 times already but didn’t visit Dudipatsar Lake which is about 52 km from Naran. If we go to Kaghan valley then we would definitely visit Dudipatsar Lake but I was thinking if it would be too early to visit Dudipatsar? We are aiming for mid of June..
If anyone been to Dudipatsar Lake then could you please tell me if it would be ok time to visit Dudipatsar or would it be frozen?
its definitely tooooooo early. last year we had plan to go there, but had to cancel it, and our plan b also failed.
we reached Besal in the evening, non-stop from pindi, we were to camp there over night and start early morning, people at Jalkhad told us that it may be accessible but guys at Besal will be able to commit with you and provide you guide and porter. but when we reached besal, they strongly rejected the idea of attempting dudipat at that time due to heavy snowfall late june.
when were at besal that night, a party came back from dudipat, and they told us that it took them 2 days to reach the lake and it was very very tough due to heavy snow (3+ feet at some spots) and they were not able to see the lake because it was all covered with snow and there was no good place to camp there.
we went there in july 2009, june will be too early.
this year we have plan to go again, INSHA ALLAH right after Eid in september
Hmmm... Thank you for your response. So what other places in Kaghan valley could be worth visiting in June? Is Babusar worth visiting? What if we go to Chilas all the way from Balakot and then to Fairy Meadows.. does it sound good?
fairy meadows is open most of the time, even in winter...
babusar pass itself would be fine, as long as the bridge on lulusar is not broken : D
when we were forced to cancel dudipat trek, we though lets cross babusar and go to hunza or see rupal face of nanga parbat, but again bad luck... the night we spent in camps at Besal and even booked the 4x4 to cross babusar, the same night a large piece of glacier came down into lulupatsar, and hit the one and only bridge and broke it : ( we planned to cross the pass on foot, but people there and security guys rejected the idea saying that local people at babusar are not friendly and they may not let you cross without snatching everything you got : D so we came all the way back to lalazar and then to shogran...
if, for any reason, you get stuck in kaghan valley, there are soo many places you can visit. go to ratti gali as waleed said, or hire a jeep from jalkhad to cross noori-top,
you can also go to lalazar, and from there a trek (not easy) leads to saif-ul-malook i think 1 - 1.5 day trek. you can also go to "makra peek", or try aansoo lake if you have not already been there. there is also a good place "Sharan" they have a forest house there, and its not crowdy at all, but the route to sharan forest house is risky and very slippery (i did not go there myself, jeep driver told us) all of the above places are towards east (right hand side when heading towards naran) except sharan, if you want to go there, you will cross the kanhar river from naran, and that jeep track leads to sharan (local people will tell u) it takes 4-5 hours in jeep from naran
Thank you so much for the recommendations. We would definitely consider fairy meadows if Dudipatsar is not accessible (which is more likely as u said).
Would you recommend a good place to take camping equipment on rent? From Balakot or Naran etc? Any phone numbers would be highly appreciated.
^ i’m sure there must be some rental shops at naran and balakot, but personally i’ve no experience renting anything from these places. but yes we did use Adventure Foundation of Pakistan (AFP) training facility at Mangal, Abbottabad/ Mansehra as a stop over and also rented some gears from them. check out their website http://www.adventurefoundation.org.pk/ and look for abbottabad office, they usualy do not rent out equipments, because those are for training purpose and mostly busy, but you can talk to them and see if there is any possibility.
if it doesnt work, there is a place called “gear up for the adventure” its a shop in Islamabad, but they charge toooo much, the best solution is buying your own, at least camp and sleeping bags, try www.higher.com.pk they have very good quality equipments, AFP uses mostly these
and i strongly recommend talking to mr ikram at AFP’s abbottabad office, he will give excellent information about local conditions these days, tell you about alternatives, help you in planning etc
Wow.. thats some valuable information. Thanks a lot.
I will definitely consult with AFP people. Hopefully it would help us a lot.
The website you told have excellent gears, they look expensive but it would definitely solve problems for next coming trips :D I'll see if these are manageable in our budget :)
Thank you. I just hope the situation become better there asap. From last few days we have been hearing a lot about strikes and shutter downs because of renaming the province to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and demands of Hazara province.
we went to dudipatsar this year in july.locals say that from july till early august is the best time to go there. after that lake starts freezing. it took us two hours on jeep from naran to besal. from there we took horses and reached mullah ki basti in 5 hours. stayed night there in camp available on rent from noor muhammad a local. rates are between 1000 to 1300 rupees per camp per night. take your sleeping bags. he serves lentils with chapati, tea, cold drinks. if you want to eat vegetables or meat take it with you from naran and he will cook. we reached mullah ki basti at 4.30 pm. river pubinar is so serene there. its peaceful and magical at night. next day we reached the lake on horses in one hour from mullah ki basti. it was very cold with strong winds. gloves, jackets, rain coat must. it was beautiful. journey back from mullah ki basti took three and a half hours to besal. first one hour of journey up wards from besal to mullah ki basti is steep climb then steep descend. rest is relatively less steep. a number of streams and glaciers on the way. it is amazing and beautiful.
^ thanks majid, so the lake is not frozen anymore, few days ago a group came back and looking at their pictures i can tell it was 80% frozen during day... post some pictures if you have
