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Day 2
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On day 2 we were to leave for Lake Dudipatsar, the actual target for this year's trip to Naran.
Dudipatsar is one of the most beautiful lakes of Kaghan valley. It is a 13km trek from Besal and is located at
a height of about 11500 feet. You can take a jeep all the way from Naran to Besal and start your trek from
there or alternatively, you can take your car to Julkhud, leave it there and then hire a jeep to Besal. But
keep in mind that you will not find as many jeeps in Jalkhad.
The trek is a moderate one with not too many steep slopes, but it takes over 6 hours to get to the lake.
Experienced trekkers can manage in much less. The usual practice is to start early in the morning from Besal
and camp overnight at the lakeside and return back the next day. This area is also frequented by wild animals
like bears, leopards and wolves (according to the locals), so appropriate countermeasures are highly
recommended especially while camping overnight. There is another way to get to the lake which is from Noori
Top and takes about two hours. You can take a jeep all the way to Noori Top and start your trek from there.
But I am told it is a difficult trek as you have to scale steep slopes. We decided to take the longer route
and to make matters even more difficult we also decided to return on the same day as opposed to camping at the
lakeside, since we did not have any weapons on us.
Starting from Jalkad once again.
