Sallam:
once again i am reporting a new exploration here at Pakwheels... this time around i made an attempt at the elusive Nazbar Pass (4977m) in Nazbar Valley, a sub valley of the famous Yasin Valley in Ghizer District of Gilgit Baltistan. for a long time i had been gathering info abt the pass and sited possible loations on Google Earth.... as this pass has not been done by any trekker or local even its info was scarce and misleading... my teams efforts into digging out the guides for this trek also bore no fruit and we decided to get all assistance on ground in Yasin valley. so the usual gang members Safeer, Arslan, Salman and Me set out on two cars from islambad on 29th june and spent the night in Battakundi. next day we crossed Babusar top and reached Taus in Yasin Valley after magrib.... where our host Shah Raheem of Vershogome Traders and tours recieved us and took us to his hotel Named Vershogome Rest House... Shah Raheem is a very cooperating man who is mainly dealing with supplying fruits to different regions... v were treated to jiucy cherries on our arrival... sari thakan khatam ho gai safar ke is say tu.... next day we planed a jeep safari to explore Yasin valley. we visited Darkot, Darkot Lake, sandi Maroodi Fort that day..... it was a great day out for acclimatization and relaxing..... had a few short walks to the Lake and Maroodi Fort as well....... on our return v made arrangements for our trek ahead but we could not find any1 who had actually crossed this pass to Shashi and so we decided to move to Nazbar valley and find guideds and porters from the villages there...
NazBar Valley:
the butiful lush and windy valley of Nazbar starts from Yasin Proper. its one of the least visited places and posesses great tourism potential.... we had the opertunity to stay in its different villages and meet its locals for our trek and finaly found a guide in Baltaring Village , Qurban Ali, who claimed to have crossed this pass once when he was young. he also arranged 3 young porters who were not als all pros.. they were just students on summer vacations ..... but this was the best chance we had... so we got geared up and loaded trhe jeep.....
The Trek:
as per the plan we were supposed to reach Battakushi, the main settlement of Nazbar Valley, on jeep but as the jeep track narrowed down to a motorbike trail a few Kms b4 battakushi we had to walk all the way there as well..... this took a couple of of hours. But Battakushi Village is awsum... just an awsum place to b... its pertinent to mention that against popular belief and literature info there is no guide and porters availabale at Battakushi now as only a few families remain there while rest have moved to other occupations than farming... v met only a coulpe of ppl there and it seemed pretty much abandonded to me...... so after a cup of tea we moved ahead to our first campsite at Shaukan... if jeep had reached Battakushi we could have reached Mashper and camped there .... anyhow .... the next day we climbed some steep slpoes over unmarked territory to the high camp of Nazbar pass at 4450m... there is no marked trail ahead of Shaukan and local heardsmen dont visit thet place frequently as well.... meanwhile qurban ali kept inquirng abt the location of the pass which made us doubt weter he had done the pass our not???? but anyhow our testing day had come and it was crossing day. early morning start from HC and a steep 6 hour climb through glaciers, soft snow, rocks and scree lead us to the pass.... the views from the pass are amazing.. one of the best the passes can offer.. even rakaposhi is visible on a clear day.. there r many 5000 m Peaks around butiful ones but not notable..... some excellent climbinng opertunities exist in this region........
the Impass:
upon our arrival to the top it was hard to make out the exact location of the pass as the entire head of the valley was guarded by a huge 50-100 feet high ice cornice..... now this was a big durprise for me as i was expecting some snow on the pass but not a cornice so huge.... this was contrary to my research as well as well as Google earth imagery.... our guide went ahead to scout for a possible crossing location but it was in Vain... so we decided to head back from the top as it had started snowing there and the wheather did not look promising ahead... perhaps the pass is now no longer in use by locals as well as the sheprds at HC siad that we were the first non locals to attemt the pass in 25 Years.... others cliamed that the duration was around 12 years.. non the less the huge cornice on the pass lead me to believe that the pass is not crossable till very late in season mayb august end.... there is a strong pooibility as discussed with Mr Khurseed of FM that the cornice is a permanant feature now due to greater snow fall on the other side of the valley .... this would make the pass Techincal in late season as well......
although i was a little dissapointed at first in not being able to cross later the team and locals were encouraged and happy at the attempt and finding of this new route which could be an area of interest for future trekkers... ....
pics coming up......... some good ones .. thankx fro reading......
