Pahalgam Kashmir - Land of valleys and meadows

Intro
Pahalgam is a hill station and small town in Anantnag District of Jammu & Kashmir around 98 kms from Srinagar the summer capital. The 2-day famous Amarnath Yatra to Holy Cave and magical ice formed Shivling starts from Pahalgam(Chandanwadi).

How to reach
Delhi to Jammu (620 kms) - via train or buses or flight.   http://www.ixigo.com/trains/JammuTawi-JAT
Jammu to Khanabal (240 kms) - via bus or private taxi
Khanabal (Anantnag Sumo Stand) to Pahalgam (40 kms) - via shared taxis
OR
Delhi to Srinagar - via flight
Srinagar to Pahalgam (98 kms) - via state buses or private taxi

Places to visit
Chandanwadi Glacier
Betaab Valley
Aru valley - Baisaran meadows
Golf Course
Mammal Shiv temple

My diary

Day 5 and we headed towards Pahalgam,a small town in Anantnag District. We left Srinagar early morning around 5.30 am to cover approx 100 kms and passed by Khannabal at 6.30, Aishmugam at 7.30. Our car brakes failed at Aishmugam so we left the driver there to get the car repaired and took a local jeep to Pahalgam which was around 16 kms and reached by 9.30.

While entering the town  there is a bridge on Lidder River, the water current  is turbulent and river appears completely white raging over small rocks and boulders.

Pahalgam is a small town with  few gardens, hotels, a police station.
We headed straight towards the golf course which you see towards right. It is also one of the highest golf courses in the world. They charge around Rs 150 for an hour to play and if you want clubs then they charge another Rs 100.

 The golf course wasn't open yet, anyways we had no intention to play, just wanted to have a look as we had to cover lot of places.

Towards the right, we taking the shortcut by avoiding the road and  sliding straight down the hill from golf course back towards the town.

We again crossed the bridge, took some snaps at this location shown below and headed towards taxi stand. All tourists have to take a taxi here to see Chandanwadi and Betaab Valley as outside vehicles are not allowed.

 

Just opposite to rest house is Mammal temple. This Siva temple is on the right bank of River Lidder and is 8 square feet internally and has a porch supported on two columns. It's an ancient temple dating back to 5th century AD.

We hired a maruti van for Rs 600 to visit Chandanwadi Glacier and Betaab Valley. Now Chandanwadi Glacier is the starting point or base camp for Amarnath Yatra and it takes around two days to reach to the holy cave  where the magical ice shivling gets formed inside the holy cave. The yatra starts around late June and continues till late Sep or early Oct.

If you are interested you can visit this
http://www.amarnathyatra.org/



Even though the distance between Pahalgam and Chandanwari is 16kms it takes close to 50 mins due to terrible road. Reached around 12 and roamed around on Glacier for an hour or so. The river flowing out of a huge ice boulder.

The pic on right shows the river on one side and the bottom pic shows the river entering the boulder on other side. So we trekked over this huge ice boulder to reach the other side.

 While crossing the small glacier we  took the dangerous patch where the ice sheets were thin  and chances of a fall were high. Anyways two policemen followed us from the other side to warn us but we had already crossed by the time they reached us. We didn't notice them and got caught there doing some mischief but finally convinced them

Betaab Valley (top), you must be thinking quite a filmy name right- yes it actually got it's name from the Bollywood movie Betaab starring Sunny Deol and Amrita Singh. Sunny deol's farmhouse and major part of the movie was shot here. Lidder river loses it's flow passing through this plain valley and water color changes from white to greenish making the top view of the valley simply delightful. For a better comparison see the left side snap which shows the Lidder river just 4 kms upstream and compare how it transforms from being completely whitish wild (left) to greenish serene(top).

We reached back  Pehelgam around 2 and then took up an hotel named "Pahalgam Hotel". Our balcony view (top) of Lidder valley and high peaks with gusting sound of rough Lidder was just perfect. By the way the nice view room cost us just Rs 600 for the day.

Got fresh quickly and were ready  for our next trek to Baisaran Meadow by 3.30 in afternoon. Locals guided us through the way and it was around 7 kms from Pahalgam but the climb was really steep. It was the first time in Kashmir trip I had to take breaks to gather my breath so I would advise travelers to either take it slow or take the horse. The trek was so steep that we were not able to click anything on the way. Finally 1.5 hr of struggle paid off and we emerged out onto this beautiful lush green meadow, a perfect picnic spot.

I really enjoyed the walk barefoot on the grass enjoying the peaks all around and even took a short nap.

We started moving on a different route from here and this was long around 12 kms but an easy trek. It started getting dark around 5.30 and we were still very far from Pahalgam somewhere in deep forests. Our common sense got the better of us and we started following a group of ponnie boys waiting here and there for some snaps.

This trek was really nice and we passed through a stream (top) and a gujjar village(left). Local boys with horses advised us to move fast as it might be dangerous if night falls with wild animals and some locals around that place. It took us around 2 hrs to descend and by the time we reached  hotel it was around 8.

So this was our day 6 of Kashmir trip in Pahalgam. Tiring in terms of trekking but a pleasant adventure.

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