Exploring Sat Sar Mala Lakes

This post is part of a series called Exploring lakes in the valleys of flowers.

Exploring Sat Sar Mala lakes is the first part of my 19 lakes exploration trip in the valleys of Kaghan and Kashmir. The prelude of this series can be read at Exploring lakes in the valleys of flowers.

We started our journey from Islamabad under the banner of Nature Explorers. Our first destination was Besal in Kaghan Valley. We did a short stop at Balakot for shopping of grocery items and filling of gas cylinders. We did our lunch at Naran and kept moving towards Besal. We reached Besal in the night and setup our camps. The night was cold even in the month of August which is the peak summer time in Pakistan.

The very next morning we started our journey towards Sat Sar Mala lakes series. First we went in coaster upto the end of the Lulular lake and then we had to walk by foot, due to a mechanical fault in the vehicle, on the road for an hour to reach the starting point of the Sat Sar Mala lakes trek. After almost 2 hours some of the members had reached the first lake. As the trek is too steep so some of the members decided to visit Fairy lake and stay there until the forward group comes back and joins them to explore 2 more unknown lakes on our way back.

The forward group explored 5 lakes one after another in steep hike. Especially the way to the Surkhail lake, the last lake of the series, proved to a tough one but all the members of the forward group were able to climb up and reach there.

Unfortunately the trek up to Surkhail lake took too much time so by the time when reached the Fairy lake, the first lake, on our way back it was already evening hence we decided to go back to our camp site at Besal instead of exploring the 2 additional unknown lakes. We enjoyed our journey back to our camp site at Besal because all of us (27 members + 2 guides) had to ride in a single tractor which dropped us at the end of Lulusar lake.

Traveling is living!

Photography by: Sher Ali’s Photography
Map credit: Haseeb Aslam Butt