Trekking to Katura Lake

Trekking to Katura Lake was one of the challenging parts of our Kumrat Valley tour in August, 2019. We planned hiking to Jahaz Banda, and then trekking from Jahaz Banda to Katura Lake in a single day. In simple sense, it would mean 8-hours hiking plus trekking. However, steep hiking to Jahaz Banda comes too hard on some of our fellows, especially our dear Razi and my sweet fellow Aasif.

We reached Jahaz Banda mountain-top around 2 pm. Many of our fellows were not in favor of trekking to Katura Lake, but our Ultimate Habib Watto insisted to do the adventure.

Four of us, Adnan, Umar, Watto, and me, decided to go for Katura Lake trekking adventure. We decided to take the horse-guides with us as we were expecting that we would not be able to come back before the sunset.

Horse riding in a rough, slippery and irregular mountainous trek was in itself a chilling experience. At start, the terrain was sort of muddy and slippery, but as soon we reached small blue body of water, aka Chota Katura, rough stony path was there to challenge us. We sort of parked our horses there :).

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The trek to Katura Lake was a challenging one. As it appears, the frequent landsliding from the nearby peaks has studded the path with small and large stones in great numbers. Trekking on this stony path was not easy and I believe credit goes to our joggers.

Nevertheless, me and Umar trekked forward towards Katura Lake. We met people coming from the lake, and everyone was of the view that we shouldn’t trek to the lake in this time of the day. We should have been bit earlier. They were skeptical whether we would make it to the lake or not. Sometimes, this appears to be true to us too, as both pointed stones beneath our feet, and setting sun above are testing us.

However, our guides were optimistic that we should not only make it to the lake but we would be back to our camp in the Jahaz Banda, before it would get pitch dark in night. While trekking towards lake, we were expecting Habib and Adnan coming behind us.

Reaching up to the mouth of the lake was in itself a challenging one. The stony upward track was sort of slippery because of continuous drizzling there. And trekkers have to lift themselves up through a narrow path towards the mouth of lake.

At last, we were there at Katura Lake, the perfect and unique. The lake is a huge body of water, surrounded by snowy peaks from all around. There is a small mouth of lake, from where chilled water gushes outside and makes a continuous music.

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The lake is beautiful, not because of its blue water surrounded by snowy peaks, but because of its overall symmetry in the schemes of snowy peaks. The tranquility of water, stored in the tummy of the lake, was contrasted with the music of waterfall, emerged out of gushing water from its mouth. The continuous drizzling, and mesmerizing spectacle of sun set around the snowy peaks- here comes sun light kisses the snowy peaks, and here it disappears again- was a sort of spiritual.

When you are at the Katura Lake, you feel

Eyes don’t find a refreshing treat better than this, so don’t our souls a spiritual experience healthier than this.

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When I was praising the beauty of the lake, a person sitting next to me started claiming that his tribe owned the land and peaks from Jahaz Banda to this lake. He shared me an oral legend how and when Katura Lake emerged.

In ancient time, marriage of one of our tribe man got fixed with girl from a tribe that used to live on the other side of this mountain range. A marriage procession went from this mountain range, the one where is Katura Lake now, to the other side. When the marriage ceremony was done, bridegroom decided to horse-ride back through the frozen glacier with his newly-wed bride. His family requested him not to take that path, but he was adamant. Accompanying his bride, he started riding back through the glacier. When he was at the point, where is Katura Lake now, his horse started sinking into the glacier. In a no minute, he along with his horse and bride disappeared into the vast stretch of glacier. The marriage procession was witnessing all this from the nearby peak.

And when it came the next spring of the following year, glacier melted and this beautiful lake emerged out of it. They named it Katura Lake, as Katura in local language means ‘a cup that is round’. The people of the tribe inhabiting this area believe that Katura Lake still holds inside the living souls of bridegroom, his horse and his bride.

We hoped that Adnan and Habib would join us at lake, while we kept site-seeing, and enjoying drizzling. However, soon our guide informed us that they were not joining us and we had to go back now because weather was unreliable there. In the company of our guide, we started trekking back to our camp at Jahaz Banda.

While trekking back to camp, we met with trekkers from some adventurous club, presumably from Lahore. Most of them appeared tired and was struggling hard to trek through the stones. Few of them were cracking jokes on one of their friend, who was busy in mentoring an adventurous female member how to do trekking with trekking stick. Their friends were worried because it was getting dark and their speed was miserably slow because of the ‘extra-curricular activities’ of these two.

However, we did not pay attention to this mentoring activity. Our guides were quicker than us and reached much earlier at the Chota Katura, place where we have parked our horses :). They were waiting for us. We started riding back to our camp. Though it got dark, we came back to our camp before the dinner was served.