Family Trip - Till Taobutt Kashmir

[Hard2Hit]

Salaam friends,

I got quite some info from you guys in 2013 for my family trip to Neelum valley; I did go there and had a wonderful time but could not post pics earlier. Here they are now, since I thought I owed them to PW community

Went on my own car (Vitz 2005) till Keran. Passed Dhani waterfall and spent some time there...

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We went straight to Keran guest house, stayed there for a night, parked our car there and hired a jeep for 4 days...

Pic of hotel with my car parked in the front.

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Went past this stream of water with a bridge on it, on our way to Shardah.

Pic with kiddies...

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Lifted kids all the way up to the ruins of ancient Shardah university. From the pics I saw before my trip (on PW) it seemed this place would be just across the road, yet its rather a long hike specially when you have family with you.

The place is surrounded by pak army, there is a post right next to this small area too.

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From Shardah, we went straight to Kel (pronounced Khel) and stayed there for two nights. Our stay there was just for two days, and day 1 was dedicated for the Arang Kel hike. We did not spend night at Arang Kel, rather just hired a room there for having lunch (karahi of murgi / choocha for you karachiites )

Our jeep driver helped us hire 3 horses using his contacts at Arang Kel, the horses were brought down to the bridge at Kel to take us up. But we took our time in getting ready and one of the horses ran way; consequently I had to hike all the way up while my family rode horses.

Arang Kel... the sky was never so blue !!

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We had a lot of fun in Arang Kel, the place is really really beautiful. We mingled with locals and took pics for couple of hours. Kids enjoyed their time there a lot.

We planned our hike back to Kel before magrib. It took us almost 2 hours to climb down because we were accompanied with kids.

It was getting dark but we still met with people who were climbing up at that hour. We shared some experience and info with them.

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We spent the night at the same govt guest house in Kel, and set out for Taobutt the next morning. Journey till here was very tiring, especially with kids, but we just had to reach the last village of AJK because due to road conditions and all we weren't sure whether we would come here again!

Thats the infamous fishing bridge at Taobutt, and the plains at river bank past the bridge. That place past the bridge was supposed to be a no-go area, but we didn't know and were cautioned by officials on our way back.

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Upper Taobutt - This is where the road ends and meadows start. The path leads to Deosai planes and Astore.

At the bank of Gagai Nallah... this is where the journey ended.

[asifcae]

great family trip

how was the govt rest house in Taobat???????????

[shegg4]

Wow that's glimps of heaven <3
keep the picture coming lovin this thread:)

[Hard2Hit]

great family trip

how was the govt rest house in Taobat???????????

Thanks bro. If I recall correctly, some of your posts provided good guidance when I was planning the trip in May-June 2013.

To answer your question, we didn't spend night at Taobutt, I think there is no govt guest house there. There are, however, a couple of private places there to stay. And then there is army units and their quarters.

The govt guest houses we stayed at were Keran and Kel. Keran is more a private guest house now since its leased I think (on 'theka' perhaps).

[talhawaleed]

Upper Taobutt - This is where the road ends and meadows start. The path leads to Deosai planes and Astore.

At the bank of Gagai Nallah... this is where the journey ended.

great, Deosai National Park is not far away from Toabat, have a look at the URL below

http://goo.gl/maps/GDAhp

can someone confirm if their is a road route 4*4 to Deosai park or least tracking route.

P.S: Road goes from Dudgai Village to Deosai Park but distance between Taobat to Dudgai Village is only 20km. 20km is not lot, if they can build a road here then entire area will be linked.

[Hard2Hit]

^ The bridge you see in my last pics is all what is connecting Taobutt to the places ahead. There is no 4*4 track per se, since that bridge is too narrow and weak for vehicles.

From my research on PW and different blogs, one can only hike from Taobutt till Deosai and ahead. All you'll find there is unadulterated nature, streams of water, clear sky and bakar-waal with their goats...

[anwarriaz1]

Nice trip and pictures, post more pic.

[farooq05]

wonderful clicks and seems kids had lot of fun there.. what are the jeep fares in neelum if someone hires from Keran?

[Shahzad727]

nice trip.keep rolling pls.what were the rent at karen etcc??

[Hard2Hit]

nice trip.keep rolling pls.what were the rent at karen etcc??

We paid 2500 per night at Keran guest house, and 1600 per night at Kel guest house. It was June 2013, and 6 days trip costed us almost 60k including everything.

Jeep for 4 days costed us around 15k, 9k fuel and 6k rent.

We were 3 adults with 3 kids.

[Hard2Hit]

wonderful clicks and seems kids had lot of fun there.. what are the jeep fares in neelum if someone hires from Keran?

Thanks for liking. I did some bargaining and got him down to 1500 per day I think. Strange I forgot the actual figure! May be it was 1200 per day...

Sent from my iPhone

[pkazmat]

nice brother ..

[usmanshafqat]

very good sharing