This year we again planned for Dudipat Lake 3rd time, but unfortunately we could not even attempt. Although failed, but it was an exciting 3 days trip.
Two years ago, first time we had plan to go there after aanso lake, which was cancelled because 2 of our group members got injured while coming down from Aansoo Lake. Last year we reached Besal (starting point for trek to dudipat) in Start of July, and we were told by locals that due to unprecedented heavy and late snow falls in that area lake was still frozen so we had to cancel the plan and go somewhere else.
Our flight from Karachi departed for Islamabad around 7:30am, did some last minute shopping (food, medicines etc) from Pindi, reached Mansehra around 6 and spent night there. Next morning, left Mansehra right after Fajar, when roads were empty and market was closed, when we reached balakot, kids were going to schools, and main bazaar of balakot had started to open. Till Kewai (turning point for Shogran) we saw many signs of devastations by flood, at some places, complete hotels/ shops had disappeared as River Kunhar changed its course during recent flood. Those familiar with the area may recall that there used to be a hotel just before Balakot City, on the river side, called “Heaven Spot Restaurant and hotel” this hotel is totally washed away, nothing left.
Journey upto “Malakandi” was pretty smooth and fast, road condition was better than last year, even after the devastating rains. But Malakandi, as usually was closed for last 4 days due to heavy land slide, and there was no chance of opening any sooner because rocks and mud was still coming down every 15-20 minutes. (Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of Malakandi Land slide, will post later as they were in my friends cam) The only option was to go down to the river, and cross the landslide area on foot, and then take another ride from the other side upto Naran. We reached Naran around 4pm, which was almost empty because there were only 1-2 other groups of tourists who had come down from babusar side. Took another ride from Naran to Besal.
This year, we reached besal on 16th of Sep, till the evening of 16th everything was fine, we camped there, and we had even settled our plan with the guide and porter and decided about all the horses and rates stuff, ordered for meal for next two days. But woke up next morning only to know that almost 4 feet of snow fell last night, and a group (which was last group which reached dudipat this year) just came down late night in very bad condition and one of their member was also injured : s
Seeing all this, our guide refused to go, and suggested not to try lake this year again. But he also suggested another route if we were interested. That was, go back to Jalkhad, hire a 4x4 upto “Noori Top” and see if there are any local “bakarwals” (khana badosh/ nomad people who spend their summer there) are still there, if yes, then take a guide with you, and you may reach the lake in shorter time as compared to going all the way from Besal, on foot or horse…
So we decided to give it a try, waited for any ride for 2 hours, and then reached Jalkhad around 10:30 in the morning. People at Jalkad informed that jeep track till Noori Top is “supposed” to be open because they saw army vehicles coming down few days ago.
Around 11:30 we left Jalkhad for Noori Top, and the jeep track on spots was not really a jeep track anymore : s Around 1 kilometer before the top, the track was entirely closed. So the driver stopped there and we decided to “walk” to the top and see if we can find anyone who’s ready to take us to dudipat. This short walk took us around 45 minutes because of lake of oxygen and very heavy winds. 2 groups of kashmiri bakarwals crossed us while we were going up, they did not say anything else, except “ooper nahi jao” : s
We hardly spent 10 minutes on Noori Top trying to breath and calm down, when things started to change very fast. Wind became even faster, “keeri” converted to snow (keeri is a term in local language they use to define the middle state between rain and snow, it’s not Hail, hail is like ice, but keeri is smaller than hail and snow white in color). This was when our guide shouted to come down fast, and started to run : D and we were like what?? We could not hear anything but followed him. Just after couple of minutes we realized what he was saying, when we saw snow becoming heavier and the trek becoming slippery… took us around 30 minutes to come down to where jeep was waiting for us, and then the journey back to Jalkhad (almost 10 kilometers from that point) was the most frightening and scary thing (you will see that in pictures), even scarier than the jeep track to fairymeadows, it was very very slippery mainly because of continuous rain.
Now pictures… though I did not get chance to take out camera most of the time because of non-stop rain/snow (specially when we were on foot) most of the pictures taken from within the jeep, and you can imagine the bumpy ride, so I could not hold the camera any steadier, and most of the pictures are blurred, also they are compressed to smaller size for easy upload.
Our camps at Besal
Masjid at Besal
Right after Maghrib, distant and higher peaks are still bright
Next morning, area around our camp
Approaching Noori Top, my friend and guide have already reached
Noori Top, this is border between Kaghan and Kashmir, descend takes you to upper neelam valley in Kashmir
Going back to Jalkhad
Looking down, most of the slops were covered with these purple and red flowers
The jeep track
Looking towards Jalkhad while coming down from Noori Top
More bumps
Imagine your ride slipping towards all possible directions on this track : p
When the ride gets scarier, look down
Looking backwards, cannot see anything towards the top now, it was continuously raining and snowing there
The view outside the hotel window in Naran. We were supposed to camp here as well, but due nonstop rain, and very cheap hotel rates we decided to take a room for night. In regular season, this room was around 5k per night, but we got it for 500 per night : p as we were the only tourists left in Naran
Next morning back to Mansehra and then Islamabad. Malakandi Landside was still not cleared, and had to cross that area again on foot.
Although we could not reach Dudipat and Ratti Gali lakes, and had to come back only in 3 days while we had to spend 6-7 nights out there in the mountains, but it was a hectic yet memorable trip. Anything after Naran is closed now to open again next year INSHA ALLAH in June.