Kashmir Great Lakes Trek

Detailed Itinerary

Day 1: – Arrival. Reception at Srinagar airport/bus station.
On arrival at Srinagar airport or bus station, our representative cum driver will receive you and drive to Sonamarg for an overnight stay in a tented camp. We have a tea or kahwa before the dinner at the evening. The drive through Ganderbal villages takes maximum 3 hours to cover a distance of around 100 kms. Sonamarg is the last town with a market before the start of the trek.

Day 2: – Sonamarg – Nichnai (7  hrs trek). After breakfast at the campsite, we pack our load and backpacks on horses and start our trek. Our trek is a slightly steep ascends the meadows and enters a pine/ birch forest at Shokdari. There’s a army check post where we have to produce our ID cards or passports. The process takes not more than 10 minutes to tally the ID’s with the trek-permits which we had acquired well in advance. The officials are very friendly and the short break is worth to have a distant sight of the Thajwas glacier and the vibrant Sonamarg town. We trek pine forest for 3 hours and have our lunch at Shokdari Top. After the lunch our trek enters birch forest a slight descend trek, very comforting in walking as we enter the vast and long Nichnai meadow. It takes another hour or two to reach our camping ground to have our tea or kahwa and finally the dinner and an overnight stay.

Day 3: – Nichnai – Vishnasar – Krishansar Lake (7 hrs trek). After the breakfast, we leave Nichnai meadow crossing a small icy-water stream, we start ascending one of the three passes of the trek the Nichnai Pass (4080m). The pass will test our legs and most importantly our stamina. The trek which takes an hour of some steep hiking looks never-ending. We ascend the pass through grazing pastures of sheep and goats. After crossing the pass we enter into the Vishansar Valley which is also called as “the valley of medicinal plants”, due to its sheer varieties of alpine flowery plants. We take our lunch and trek all the way down to Vishansar Lake. We take our tea or kahwa and the dinner at the campsite. Vishansar Lake is just a 10 minutes walk away from our campsite.

Day 4: – Vishansar – Gadsar (8 hrs trek). After the breakfast, we start our day’s trek looking over and over to Vishansar Lake while we ascend to Krishansar Lake. The Krishansar Lake is a sibling of the former, it lies just over a ridge. We take its eastern shore to ascend the second and the highest pass of the trek the Gadsar Pass (4180m). The pass-trek is steeper than that of the Nichnai. It takes 2 hours to ascend the pass. On the top of the pass, we have the aerial view of the whole Vishansar valley among it are situated the twin lakes of Vishansar and Krishansar “the source of Neelam River”. We trek-down the Gadsar valley and take our lunch at the Gadsar Lake. The valley is also full of the flowery alpine plants and the green carpeted mountains look fabulous with their snow-clad tops. Our alpine pasture trek is full of Kashmir sheep, while walking down the trek it looks never ending as finally we arrive our camping ground at Kostour Kot. Before few years there used to have another army check-post, but luckily they are gone. Now no more checking at Gadsar. We take our tea or Kahwa and have our dinner at the evening.

Day 5: – Gadsar – Satsar Lakes – Megandoab (5 hrs trek). After the breakfast we ascend Kostur Kout leaving Gadsar valley, it takes 2 hours of a trek to enter the meadow of Rasbal. At the Rasbal a flowing river disappears inside the boulders and flows underground. The trek follows a fertile meadow. We continue our trek through seven small lakes of Satsar and camp at Megandoab at the foothills of the third pass of Zajibal for an overnight stay. Today we take our lunch at the campsite as this is the shortest day of the trek.

Day 6: – Satsar – Gangabal lake (6 hrs trek). After the breakfast at the campsite we start our trek by criss-crossing boulders. We ascend the last pass of our trek ‘Zajibal Pass (4080m)’. It takes maximum 3 hours of alpine trekking. As we reach atop, all our tiredness falls apart by looking at the views and the mountain scenery of the Mount Haramukh (5300m) just standing in the front and at its footsteps lie the twin beautiful alpine lakes of Gangabal and Nundkol. There is also a clear view os the distant Kolesar Lake. We descend the pass and reach our campsite at Gangabal Lake for an overnight stay. We take our lunch at the lake and tea and dinner at the campsite.

Day 7: – Gangabal – Naranag. (6 hrs trek) – Srinagar (2 hours drive). We leave Gangabal and Nundkol Lakes and trek down the meadows of Trunkhol. We may need to produce our permits and show our ID cards at the Army check-post at the Trunkhol. We continue our trek down and enter the tree-line. We trek down to Naranag village through the pine forests of Bodpathri. Here ends our 6 days of walking. We take our lunch at a Restaurant and take our car drive back to Srinagar houseboat or hotel for an overnight stay. Dinner and breakfast at the houseboat or the hotel.

Day 8: – Departure day. Our representative will drop you at the airport or bus station for the departure.