If you love traveling but hate populated places like dharamshala kasol etc. This blog is for you.
Love height ?
Are you a risk taker ?
City honking makes you sick ?
Time for you to take a week off.
Get in your car drive to pahalgham. (Kashmir)
It will take 2 days to reach there if you start from delhi perhaps you must have prior experience of driving in mountains.
I personally like to drive car, leave plane or train.
So, let begin with pahalgham.
(Dont just start climbing the day you reach their. Cool off first if you drove that much.)
If you are planning to go there in may or june you might not get chance to see your shadow, yeah its that populated. Still it doesn't matter if you are about to climb to towards tulian valley.
The trek starts like any other with a mob heading in one direction. There will be ponys and guides although you wont need any of them.
New to trekking? No worries hombre.
First head to pahalgham market. Follow people they're all heading towards baisaran or mini Switzerland. That would take you about 30 mins.
Little about baisaran.
You won't believe it's India, yeah thats why its called mini Switzerland.
Its uncanny how sharp and saturated atmosphere is there. Let alone the view. If you're one of those who wish to climb every mountain. Then you might skip a beat.
Although its would be densely populated but what the hell its not mini china. :P
There are many stalls eat there and keep a water bottle with you. Enjoy a while. Then again time to move.
From baisaran you'll see snow covered mountain right infront you as you enter baisaran. Yeah you're going there, happy much ?
By now you must have covered about 5 kilometres, 10 more to go.
Its not going to be easy rather it will be risky at times.
Baisaran is plane ground for about 800 meters. At the very end of baisaran no population. No damn person to annoy or breach your view.
So there will be two trails one will be leading you in right direction other one is steap. If you're a risk takeing junkie go ahead straight up as both of them will lead to tulian. To keep this blog interesting lets move on to trail more taken. Its all covered by deodar trees. For sake of your health it would be better if you dont remove layers unless you've reached tulian for about 15 mins. Dont forget about being well hydrated. Their will be mind boggling edges you'll be trekking on what makes it incredible is that with turn you make you'll enjoy a different view of different mountain or valley, about that their is a certain point from where you can see dal lake and almost whole of Srinagar, yeah its true. It will mess with your mind if you come from Srinagar to pahalgham because it takes about 4-5 hrs to drive there by road and the view you'll get will leave you in sense that if you try and jump off the cliff you'll land in Srinagar its that close.
Thats the beauty of it.
To give you a rough idea. Srinagar is valley surrounded by mountains of Gulmarg in west, pahalgham in east, Sonamarg in north and patni top in south.
The actual position of Sonamarg is north west which lies just above pahalgham but their is no road from pahalgham to Sonamarg. One has to travel all the way from Srinagar to reach Sonamarg. As most of you dont know Sonamarg is place from where Amarnath yatra begins and fyi from pahalgham as well.
Difference is their is no road ahead of pahalgham but Sonamarg is the place which comes un between if you going to zojila, kargil or leh. (About this in next blog)
So once you finally reach tulian in about 3-4 hrs you camp there and never come back. :P
Tulian valley not a spot where most tourist go. As its hard to and risky to go there. Which will provide you utter silence and peace. A little ahead of tulian valley lies glacier which most certainly provide stream so clean you can make a mirror out of it.
Tulian valley remains covered in snow from October to april. Which gives us may, june ,july august, September to visit it. Out of these months july is the best month. Why ?
Well in July almost all of the snow has melted down and the grass has begun to grow so does flowers. In month of july you'll get local shepherds there to provide you milk and food. Yeah there are shepherds who live there but as soon as it starts snowing they come down to the town.
Reason for shepherds to live there you ask ?
Foreigners. Yeah they are the biggest trekking junkies you'll ever meet. Perhaps you cant match them. Because you know they go from pahalgham to leh. Yeah it takes 21 days to trek that much.
Coming back to tulian. There is tulian valley and tulian lake which lies ahead of tulian valley. Its not merely easy to go there in may without proper equipments but in july it's easier and it only takes 2 hrs from valley to lake. If you go to lake, firstly it always have snow moreover there is tremendous change in terrain cause you know its just one mountain away from Sonamarg and just ahead of Sonamarg starts Ladakh region which means rocky mountains and no grass whatsoever, its total blue water body which makes it even more mesmerising with rock surrounding and snow, well you cant camp near lake so come back to tulian valley because going ahead of lake without guide would be a mistake dont treat mountains like your homies. Their are no restrictions in staying there you camo their for as much time as you can.
Ever thought of Kashmir like this. No ?
Well terrorism is not that Kashmir is known for but for a word "paradise"
This trek could be a life changing experience for you.
