I went on a trekking and camping trip to Rakaposhi Base camp. It was my first ever trip to Hunza valley and there i realized i should have come earlier. But as they say ‘better late than never’.
We were supposed to camp at the foot of Rakaposhi called Tagafry but the path was broken. Initial route was Lahore-Karimabad (Hunza)- minnapin village and then Trek to Happakun and Tagafry. But we could only camp at Happakun and took a day trip to closes possible ridge to Tagafry. We also had two extra days in karimabad on return from Rakaposhi and some of us availed it to trek to another base camp (Ultar) besides having some other adventurous activities in Karimabad.
A camera can only capture a small percentage of awesome and breathtaking beauty in such areas and also the 110kb limit makes one reduce pictures to an irritatingly small size. Anyone needs a full picute in future can contact me. So here goes:
This is a veiw from backside of a motel in Bishaam. This water stream is our very own Indus river which originates from near by mountain ranges and these green huge mountains make a fabulous scene.
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Same as above
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This is taken from the bus enroute to Chilas as the sign says
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A view of the famous Karakoram range taken from the bus. These mountains are so prone to landslides but make an awesome view.
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And oh yeah its me posing as if i had nothing better to do. Actually i didnt, as we were waiting for our lunch to arrive. We stopped just before Chilas to rest and have lunch. But the pose had some story behind it; I was on the foot of a mountain sitting on rocks and they were really slippery. I had to support my knees to stop myself from falling and it turned out to be a real show-off pose.
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Another view of Karakoram range, These mountains ARE huge!!
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This is one of the pictures taken from our very first trek starting from a guest house in Minnappin village.
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This is me with my oh-so-heavy backpack. I could barely smile for the picture.
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The dark clouds over the mountain were a fabulous sight, too bad a head popped up as soon as i pressed the button.
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This is a glimpse of a zig-zag trek known as 'climb of death' and it really was one. Such frequent turns with a steep climb. Its about one and half hour (on average, ppl even spend 3 hours on it follwing zig-rest-zag-rest pattern) trek and i really thought i wont make it to the top and will die here with that monstrous backpack on my nazuk shoulders. I even started to think over my possible will.
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This is a view downwards midway through that zig-zag path. It felt good that we made it this far and the view was... well speaks for itself.
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I went for a hiking and mountaineering course to gilgit/hunza too… we stayed for 2 weeks at the foot of rakaposhi as well. Our training camp was situated at Nilt. Got the “Koh Paima” badge for it, which was equivalent to the koh paima badge of the Pakistan armed forces…
Had a great time there… learnt a lot of technical stuff,used all the professional mountaineering n rock climbing stuff, learnt the knots, the different types of rapelling techniques, front pointing, rock/Ice climbing, belaying and free climbing n blah blah, cant even remember most of the stuff anymore but it was an awesome experience. I think I even posted a thread ages ago… with some pics as well.
Ayman- I wil send em today, i thougth i did already but oh well, i m not getting any younger tu excusez moi!
Rukhsar Bibi-- Yep, they were amazing scenes...
Kaka- Yes I had a great time too, i could not do Rock climbing because of time constraints but yes we managed to do Rock Repelling. It was great fun and an awesome experience as you rightly said. And hunza cherries, i ate loads of em, they were just yummy.
Desi Kuri-- Thanks
sadzz--- Yes if you can you MUST go there, it is worth going anytime.
batameez-- thanks
Code_red-- Yeah i thank God for giving me such an oppurtunity and making our country this beautiful.
malik-- well we saw loads of hunza Kids but not babes.... :-p
This was our campfire, It was freezing there at nights and it helped a lot...
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This was a water stream nearby our campsite where we used to brush, wash face, etc etc. Its a group of people on the first morning of the camping.
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Going towards Tagafry. We had trekked upwards from our campsite by then
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It is taken from a ridge which gave the best possible view of Minnapin Glacier and Rakaposhi but Rakaposhi was behind the clouds that day and not visible in the picture
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Same mountain plus part of minnapin glacier
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same as above
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Looking backwards from the ridge
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Filling water bottles from stream in the evening
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Sunrise at Happakun the next morning
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scenery at the Happakun campsite on the morning we were supposed to leave
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Whole Rakaposhi group right before we were supposed to leave. The goat in the picture came up from minnapin with few poeple and did not leave our side till the end. It even triued to get in tents at nights.
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On our way back to Minnapin. View just after the zig zag part.
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Rakaposhi from our guest house where we had lunch and then left for Karimabad
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This kid is manager's nephew and he is ADORABLE. His name is Ali. Everyone in the group was crazy after him.
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Diran peak as seen from the bus on our way back to Karimabad
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One of Rakaposhi's best view from a place called Rakaposhi View point. We couldnt even see it because of clouds when we were right beside it but as soon as this view appeared, ppl screamed out of amazement. Bus driver was kind enough to stop and let us take pictures of this awesome view
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Next morning, we (6 people) hired a guide and headed towards Ultar base camp. It was really a tough Trek but worth the effort. Here is a view from the start of the trek going upward.
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Me between rocks
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