Kashmir – Ladakh Trip Day 5 (Thajiwas Glacier, Sonmarg)

The last place remaining to visit at Kashmir was Sonmarg, which is famous for its Thajiwas glacier. Sonmarg is 87 km Northeast of Srinagar and can be reached within 3 hours. Sonmarg, which means ‘ meadow of gold ‘ has snowy mountains as a backdrop. Ponies can be hired for the trip up to Thajiwas glacier but there is need for some stricter regulation to save the environment since Litters such as plastic bottles, etc., are strewn all over along the track. A close by excursion is to Baltal, 15 km north of Sonamarg. This little valley lies at the foot of the Zojila, only a day’s journey away from the sacred cave of Amarnath is a base camp for Amarnath yatra. But since we did not want to travel at night, we decided to keep a day for the visit to Sonmarg. In the morning we again took a rickshaw for Rs. 50 from Dal Lake to Karan nagar. We then took a shared taxi to Kangan and another shared taxi to Sonmarg (Rs. 125 per person for both the taxis). At Sonmarg, we bought gumboots and coats for Rs. 100 per person. You can either walk for 2-3 km to the starting point of the Thajiwas Glacier or hire at taxi for Rs. 800. The hike to the glacier was one of the best travel experiences of my life. The 2 hour walk (one way) was quite a thrilling and refreshing one. It was raining while walked towards the glacier which made the path a little slippery. Many of the tourists preferred taking a pony to the glacier than walking. One has to be careful while walking on the mountain terrain especially when there are narrow paths. On reaching the glacier, we played in the snow for some time, where it rained again for few minutes. We walked down the same route of the mountain. At the end of the day, we both were left wandering the way we managed the long walk without getting tired. We then took the last shared taxi to Srinagar and finally had dinner at Krishna Dhaba which we found really average though people were really praising it.