my plan was of haramosh, distracted by the Attabad lake. in hurry, i have to return my tickets for skardu and leave home for Sharda in neeleum valley without any prior information. I thought that I will have sufficient information from Sharda.
Though this year, my tour was not that much satisfying in manner of trekking but it was one of the exclusives.
4 june: after juma prayer, we reached faizabad, through our rucksacks on bus and reached muzaffarabad. stayed a night there.
5 june: jump up with rucksacks on the old ford busses direct to sharda. the road is narrow but widening now. reached sharda late night. in way rain hit us with cold wind. that night on ratti gali, heavy snow falled. Anyways in way i was informed that i should forget ratti gali and nori nar due to heavy snows due to contineus rains last month. stayed in Sharda
6june: drive up to keil. from there got information about chita khata lake. one of guides inform us that perhaps it is possible now to reach chita khata lake. we stupids got excited. and jeep up to the village of dhokrey about 4 km ahead keil.
From dhokry, according to locals they can reach domail Bala in 3 hours, i counted my hours, it was 3:30 pm. thought that i have time till 7:30. so i just carried my back pack and started walking.
it was great, scenery was awesome, shounter stream was almost mesmerizing. and snowy junggles of BURJ with rock cliffs. whole atmosphere was amazing. we kept on trekking till we reach domail pine or lower domail. there a kid offered us tea.
after tea we again started walking carrying 15kg backpack on back. all inclination. after words the village of bela comes then urkasi. from urkasi we bought a chicken for domail bala. stayed and a local surved us with energile. there the clock hit 7:00. ops that was one of the major mistake. we stayed there, relaxed our muscles and now it was feeling like hell to step up. asked that local friend abt the way. He informed that "SEEDHA RASTA HAI, AGEY NICHAI HAI, MUJHEY HALF HOUR LAGTA HAI, U KO ONE HOUR LAG JAEY GA"
anyways we again started walking. half hour passed, full hour passed it is still inclination, no decline. wat a mess. now its getting dark and still way is long.
slowly and calmly we contineud walking. a time came when we were told that those lights are of Domail balla. and those lights were looking far far away,....
abusing the one who told us that he took only half hour to reach here form urkasi. we kept on walking in the light of headtorches and without any guide. we didnt knew when we have to take turn downwards. after some time, i asked ony of my team member that brother aint we on wrong path, just check that these lights are now parrallel to us and we are on mountaing while lights are in valley...
anyways, we came back found the real path and now reached domail Bala. There were mushtaq bhai (a local) who opened a room for us, and without having dinner we slept….
7th June:
Typed too much, inshallah rest on next episode, pics are there will share pics time to time
regards