DAY 10: Diran Guest House, Minapin Nagar to Gupis Valley
I woke up to the sound of rain (probably hails too) on metal roof of our room at around 3am. WTF is going on.. I was daily checking weather reports from Besham to Khunjerab (of May 2016) and there were no indications of slight showers let alone thunderstorms. It kept raining till 10 in the morning..
I thought we'll face similar weather conditions in Naltar valley, so I skipped it and decided to confirm weather condition from PTDC Gupis. They said its sunny here in Gupis. Perfect!
I confirmed from Israr bhai (Diran Guest house) if we could reach Gupis if we leave at 12pm. He said 'why not'. So we left Minapin at 12pm..
We thought traveling to Gupis will be a piece of cake as it will take around 3 hours to reach there. Ha!
As soon as we left Gilgit and took Gilgit-Shandur road, road conditions started to deteriorate to a point where there was no road.. just rocks and pits like Dasu-Shatiyal.. even worse than that. At some points, the road becomes so narrow that you could hardly cross one car at a time. As if this wasn't enough to scare us, here comes the water crossings..
We had already traveled for more than 70 minutes, there was no turning back now.. In hopes of getting better roads ahead, we continue our journey and face even worse road..
At certain point, the original road track was completely destroyed by landslide. So they decided to create a different path which goes down at 40 or 45 degrees and then inclined at 35 38 degrees to get back on the paved road after 2kms. This was unpaved dirt track.
I had already started thinking how I would cross this patch on my way back on such a steep angle..
It started getting dark and Google maps kept increasing ETA (Googla maps is a ***** when it comes to ETAs. Never trust its estimates).. We finally reached Gupis at maghrib.. But unfortunately, PTDC Gupis was still 6km away..
It was dusk when we reached PTDC Gupis.. ordered dinner, and took some time to swallow today's journey, and the fact that we have to travel on this road again on our way back.
Phander seemed impossible as we didn't know about the road conditions ahead and we couldn't risk taking our car to this unknown dangerous road.. I should have researched more on this part of our journey. Stupid me! took my family and an infact here!
And here comes the rain! following us wherever we go... Wow! This was even worse than going to Naltar. I should have picked Naltar instead of this. Or Astor/Rama..
Now I'm stuck here at Gupis, in the rain, couldn't even go to Phander.
There was Khalti lake though. And the view was exceptional as well. I did not experience anything like this before.. PTDC Gupis was looking like a fort on a mountain surrounded by even more high rock solid mountains..
So its decided that we will leave for Gilgit tomorrow and start our return journey as weather isn't allowing us to enjoy anymore..
