Naranag Trekking & Camping
We spent one day in Srinagar after returning from Aru Valley, and then it was straight up into the mountains again. Naranag is a great place for trekking, camping and also fishing. We tried a little bit of all three.
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Naranag village is the starting point for the famous trek up to mount Harmukh and the Great Lakes trek. Boye and I didn’t go for this trek, and rather stayed at a campsite located upstream the Sind river from Naranag village.
Omer and a friend of his was with us on this trip, and we spent the evenings grilling food, playing an Indian card game, and socialising around the campfire. I don’t have any good pictures of this, but I thought it worth mentioning.
We walked past the ruins of an old Hindu temple, past a small village and then we entered Naranag valley where we set up camp.
Omer suggested that Boye and I went on a day trek, while they set up camp and he had already hired the son of one of the local villagers to guide us on this hike.
We went up and up one of the hillsides of Naranag valley. We were at a few thousand meters height, and I noticed as we climbed up the hillside that my stamina and breathing didn’t feel as strong as normally.
The view was quite impressive from the top of the hillside, and it was interesting seeing the small huts and basic roads made by the Kashmiri gypsies.
Kashmiri Gypsie hut in the middle of the hillside in Naranag valley.
The second day we walked a few hours up along the river that ran down the middle of Naranag valley. There were houses plotted scarcely along the river in a few areas, and they had simple wooden fences creating corrals for their livestock, somewhat similar to wooden fences I have seen in mountainous areas home in Norway.
Naranag valley with its thundering river is quite a sight to behold. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the scenery I have seen back in Norway, with the spruce forests and clean mountain river water.
We even befriended this cute wild dog, which behaved quite differently from the stressed, scared and sometimes aggressive street dogs of Indian cities.
In the evening the second day we also fished quite a bit, but it seems I didn’t capture any good pictures of this. Interestingly the locals fish for trout here, but the meat of the trout fish is white instead of having the red color Europeans are used to at home.
Boye watches on, as our young guide is preparing bait on a fishing rod.
Naranag was an excellent place to have a few days of camping. The views here high up in the mountains (camp site was around 2,300 meters height, and the trek we did brought us to around 2,800 meters) were breathtaking, and other than the river and animals it was quiet.
Next time Boye and I head into the majestic mountainous region of Ladakh, where the scenery is very different from the spruce forests of Naranag and the generally green landscape of Kashmir. Cheers, and have a nice weekend!
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