Off-Roaders Unlimited

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Thanks Fahad saheb. And Eid Mubarak to you as well. And the whole of MJC....

Eid mubarak to all

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[veitnam]

visist to khunzrab

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[veitnam]

[shafqathussain]

//youtu.be/gIPPQUMAq3o

[fahadullah]

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

HawaGali is a beautiful resort, not far away from Abbottabad.
It is a relatively tough track, with narrow turns, and one of the turns, when we went there,,,, was especially demanding. We had to reverse our cars at least a few times,
A beautiful spot once one reaches there.
The old rest house, though, has been demolished and a new one erected which is not very good.....

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Hoqwever, track is really beautiful....

[veitnam]

[veitnam]

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Last week, we had a short outing to Lalazar, a spot somewhere in the middle of track from Nathiagali to Mukshpuri....
It was a relatively easy climb, even for an unfit person like me, who likes to walk in a car.
Starts near Shangrila Pines

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Here is the gate to the track

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

The track has been recently redone in concrete. The concrete is an eye-sore. Bad. Could have been done with some stone masonary, and a bit of grass, or in some other more environmental friendly way.
I was very upset after walking up.
Any the good point was that new waste bins have been installed and the track was reasonably clean.... probably because of these bins.

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

This slide is from Lalazaar itself. The track here looks beautiful. The track could have been developed on these lines for example.
Similarly, the views are beautiful...
It is a pleasure to be here...

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Chitral in the End of Winter! A Great Time to Visit this Beautiful Valley

We went to Chitral, in February.
Started off from Abbottabad, early in the morning.
The Swat Expressway has made things a lot easier. Some part of Swat Expressway is under construction and the road passes through traditional winding road, with a steep incline towards the end leading to the tunnel. Beyond the tunnel, ChakDara is only a short distance away. Road is excellent, but the NCP vehicles are driven extra fast and pose a bit of risk.
ChakDara to Teemaragara is again a relatively short distance. Teemargara to Dir takes a significant amount of time. The road is winding and slow-speed. Views are great. We actually reached Dir in something like 6 + hours from Abbottabad but we were a little slower than normal, because the engine of one of our faithfuls had been recently rebuilt and the other one had some clearance issue between body and tyres, with the newly installed mud terrain tyres.

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Lowari Tunnel
Lowari Tunnel is (or are, as these are 2 in no. collectively 10.5 km. 8.5 + 2 kms) another short distance from Dir. However, this road has some recent sliding and is under construction and is quite a demanding piece of road. Lowari tunnel is at a height of 7000 feet abve sea level, and takes quite some chunk off the 10000 + feet top that used to be the only … summer only--- communication channel between Chitral and the rest of Pakistan.
Lowari Tunnel has beautiful views on both sides, but especially on the Chitral side. It has some jammers and therefore, Drones can’t connect to their remotes here. Restricted. Area. Beyond Lowari top, the road is better, with fewer slides and fewer construction hiccups. We reached Gahirat Castle Hotel near Drosh in something like 12 hours, including stops for taking tea/coffee.

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Chitral Side of Lowari Tunnel has even better views......
Coming out of the tunnel on the far side.... we entered the beautiful Chitral Valley.....
Overall a great place to be in.

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Gahirat Catle Hotel 1912: A very OffRoader Type Hotel
Gahirat Castle Hotel is a little beyond Drosh, and is a Royal residence converted into tourist attraction. We reached Gahirat Castle late in the evening.
Luckily, we had small, inexpensive, LED lights installed on both the vehicles. The old faithful had received 4 lights, 2 yellow and 2 white, and the lights with beautiful focused, only with the help of double-sided adhesive tapes. The even older faithful had 2 relatively bigger lights installed, both out-of-focus, but still working quite well. They proved very useful on this trip.
Gahirat Castle has a lavish, old, look with history oozing out of every nook and corner of the entrance lobby. The rooms and the verandas are big, with a beautiful luxurious look, and with all modern amentities, including a luxuriously appointed wash room, cold and hot running water, an inverter A/C and large windows. We were also impressed by the courteous and very polite staff at the hotel. The Dining Room was lavishily decorated with wood work and a fire place was very much alive with log fire. The rooms were way too big.... well furnished. Beautiful.

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

The next morning.... somehow, one of our offroaders landed in a lower level lawns. May be the hand brake was not effective enough. And may be the vehicle was not put into 1st gear, but we were never sure.
Anyhow, we were able to make it climb some stairs.... and with a bit of nudge from the other offroader, we were on on our way to MadaKlast, around 9.30.
The next morning…. Day 2 of ours, we started off in the morning, around 9:30 am, to wards MadaKlast, a little-known gem of a valley around 40 km from Chitral.
The road was beautiful for the first 20 km. Offroad, but not much of difficulty. However, the last few km were very tough. The two vehicles were slipping and skidding all over the road. The road was full of slush, mud and water, and was extremely slippery. Plus, the road was narrow and with a reasonably serious incline also. So, in the presence of little kids, we finally decided, on km 7 before the actual MadaKlast village to turn back.
We were unable to reach our destination, but we enjoyed our journey like anything.
The views were absolutely stunning.

[Ranger_ofthe_North]

Views were good

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