Mawarnag lakes

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Exploring SE extremity of the valley.

On sunday 12 june 2022, explored two alpine lakes namely Mawarnag at an elevation of around 3800m, located towards South-East extremity of the valley near the administrative boundary of Kashmir and Kishtwar. 
A chunk of land with beautiful alpine flowers near the ist lake.

Roadhead: Ahlan Garol Kokernag (33.49373 75.40190) Then a 2km off-road drive through forest to a place known as Yaripather where the road ends.

Details:

The trek starts from Yaripather, a 2km off-road drive from Ahlan Garol, following the stream through the forest. Enroute to the valley comes a place known as Akhran bror/ Arian bror, with dozens of terraced isolated dwellings of nomadic people.

Settlements at Arian/Akhran Bror 

As it is early summer, shepherds are yet to visit high alpine valleys which resulted in the valley being full of wild alpine flowers like Buttercup (Botanical name:Rununculus acris. 

Kashmiri name : Batakh Loon’t بطخ لونٹ).

Buttercup flowers in the valley.

From the valley the gradient increases and trail goes over the moraine/boulder area towards the Mawarnag lakes. It takes about 15min to reach the second lake from the first one, just 50m elevation gain. The second lake was more beautiful than the first as it has crystal ice sheets & chunks  floating on its surface and the sunlight reflecting over was a treat to eyes. The reason of ice chunks over the surface is because it is surrounded on its three sides by 4100m Mawarnag ridge and if one climbs to top of it, he can get a view of both the lakes and valley. 

Second Mawarnag lake

We had our lunch at the lake and weather suddenly changed. It started to rain following with the hailstorm,  which turned the whole area into white carpet. Anyways we put on our raingear and descended back to base.

First lake after the hailstorm 


It is a one day trek from Ahlan and is a beginner friendly trek. The gradient is not too much steep.Total distance 18kms (to & fro) and an elevation gain of around 1300m.

Download the GPX  here.

#explore #kashmir #trek #himalayas #mounatins #lakes #alpine #flowers #exploremore #hiker



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