Shitkadi Base Camp Altitude: 7,800 ft (2,377 m)
Shitkadi, a few kilometers ahead of Sonamarg, is the base camp for Kashmir Great Lakes Trek. We landed at Srinagar Airport at around 2:30 PM and took a shared taxi to reach Shitkadi with few fellow trekkers. Indiahikes has a prior tie-up with Sheikh Firoz Tours and Travels at Srinagar and they arrange shared vehicles to reach Shitkadi (INR 400 per person one way)
It was a pleasant 2.5 hour drive as we followed Indus river (Sindh River) all along the way. Views got prettier and weather colder with us reaching closer to Sonamarg. As we crossed Sonamarg city, our driver took a left turn on a rough muddy road. And after few minutes drive along a water stream (that meets Sindh river down-way), we reached our base camp, Shitkadi.
Please click here to read about our complete Kashmir Great Lakes Trek Experience and click here to read all our India backpacking blogs.
At Shitkadi, we were welcomed with relaxing peaceful sound of water stream flowing next to our camp-site. Here, we joined our fellow trek-mates (23 of us) as we headed to our tents. At this point, we had no idea that within next few days, we all would become such close-knit friends.
Shitkadi Base Camp Photographs
Here are our photographs from Day 1 of Kashmir Great Lakes Trek – Just a glimpse of the treasure that we were going to explore over next few days.
Akshay, our trek lead, went on to check vitals for each one of us ( Blood Pressure, Oxygen levels etc) and note down the same on our Health Cards. Post dinner, he briefed about the trek and introduced us to the team and our Trek guide, Javed Bhai.
Next day morning, we left for Nichnai, our first stop on Kashmir Great Lakes Trek. To read about our Day-2 experience, please click here.
A perfect start to a heavenly beautiful trek !!
Happy Exploration !!