Ratti Galli Lake – a Heavenly Lake on earth

I have been introducing beautiful landscape of Pakistan to my readers in my previous posts. This post today is also part of the series of posts I have earlier written to describe the heavenly beauty of Pakistan, specially the northern region, which remains generally obscured due to inaccessibility for ordinary travellers and vacation spenders.

A Flickr friend of mine Khurram Saddiqui is an avid traveller and a good photographer – a combination which is must in a travellers, because in the absence of a keen eye for the ground and taking a shot, travellers’ travelogue remain incomplete. A few days back while going through his updated Flickr photo-stream, I was amazed and dazed to see his visit to Ratti Galli Lake in Azad Kashmir, in the north of Pakistan. And with his kind permission, I am sharing the pictorial travelogue of Ratti Galli Lake – an awe inspiring and breathtaking account of the place, very few people know about.

The name Ratti Galli means a red (from local language Ratta meaning red colour) mountain (Galli means a mountain top).  The lake is in the foothills of the red mountains when the sun is setting and looks heavenly blessed place on earth. Ratti Galli can be accessed in many ways. One can either approach the place from Duwariyan in Neelam Valley (which is quite difficult), or from Duwariyan again through Jhalkhand (the longest), or else from the Noori Top.

To get to Ratti Galli Lake from Noori Top, one has to first go to Naran in the famous Kaghan Valley. The journey usually begin from Islamabad towards Abbottabad, Mansehra, Balakot and Naran. From Naran, Khurrum and his travel group of 10 moved ahead and camped at a place called Bata Kundai. And it is from here that the trekking to Ratti Galli Lake commences.

Noori top is 12,900 ft pass and is the boundary of Kaghan and Azad Kashmir. So from here our real journey was started. The group trekked from the Noori Top towards Dara Duwariyan. The Duwarian Pass is located at a height of 14,000 feet and from Noori Top, it is another 1,100 feet ascend trekking. The Duwarian Pass finally leads to the awe inspiring Ratti Galli Lake – a lake where one would like to live on forever as time stops there once you are there. 


Continue scrolling down to find some of the most fascinating natural landscape photos of Ratti Galli Lake and commentary by Khurrum:

Noori Top

The very unknown lake located in Azad Kashmir Pakistan we were on the way of Ratti gali lake and from 3 hours before it we have a look a lake which was large in size and it was really beautiful. The water was clear and reflection of the lake I captured it. It is for the first time that photos of place are being uploaded on the net. We asked the locals the name of the lake and they told us Hans Raj - the majestic Swan. 

One of memorable evening of my life when i was at this beautiful place last sun rays were on the mountain of ratti gali and it look like a red then I came to knew why people call it ratti. Ratta is a punjabi word means red so when you can see in this picture ratta at the mountains.

Children of the mountains

I am sure you would have liked the beautiful Ratti Galli Lake and appreciated Nature for what wonderful landscape it has created for us - only we are less thanking....