Surviving 15 Days Trekking in Kashmir

We broke our one week on the houseboat by booking a 15 day trek up in the mountains of Kashmir. We bartered hard (well David did I don't have the patients for it - I must learn!) to get the price we wanted, the acting involved in this was dramatic to say the least, it was as if we where starving his family for not paying 80Rs thousand but 30 for the 15 days - honestly!

We are taking our tent and one big bag, the rest of our stuff will be stored for our return. We couldn't really make out if we where supposed to be in the mountains as our journey out of Srinagar envolved the driver paying bribes for passage. At arriva of our starting village of Naranark (?sp), we spent the night there to aclimatise to the altitude. We never really knew our height 'cos no one we where with knew - not even our guide! Our map says about 3500 - 4500, latter Ramadam (houseboat dude) told us we had been upto 4500m.

With three ponies, two pony men and one guide we where off, The first day was murder, it was up, up, up and more up. My head was dizzy and I was close to tears, David was really supportive and kept me going through the pain barrier. We broke through the forest and hit the snowline, we spent our first night on a huge grassy plain, today we really had to dig deep for energy. Camped the wrong way on the hill (trial and error) we kept rolling at night but that was the only inconvience as we slept like babies from our efforts.

What ever I tell you about the time we spent in the mountains just can't do the place justice, neither will the photos but we walked and climbed in meadows, boulder and snow fields, waded in freezing rivers, fished in pristine lakes, viewed glaciers, flowers, birds and hung out with the pony men an shepards from the area.
The first few days we felt the effects of altitude in our breathing when walking and climbing but we soon got used to it. We both went through the pain barrier on various walks feeling that we just wanted to give up and go home. I think we are both the better for gritting our teeth and carring on.
In the 15 days we had one day of rain and the rest of the time we were trecking in T shirts. Living conditions were basic - a wash in a freezing mountain streem in the morning and toilet facilities were behind a rock remembering to take some water to wash with afterwards. All our water had to be gathered from streams or rivers then boiled before drinking. The only light at night was from our tourches or if we were able to have a camp fire.

We visited Naranarg, Dronco, Gangabal Lake, Pakistan border, Magandorp, Satsa (seven lakes), Gansall and back to Naranarg. When we returned we were invited to the Pony Mans house and met his family and they cooked us a meal. The next day we headed back to the houseboat for a relax for 2 days.