Metro-T3-Pir Sohawa Road-expresses highway- Centaurus-Metro

Trekking in the summer in Islamabad is not that easy especially if you want a longer hike.
Problem being burning sun and in monsoon the suffocation. I have faced both in the past and vowed to never try that but sometime we do not learn from our mistakes.

The plan was to do Trail 3 and Trail 4 combo, which was altered to Trail 3 and a ridge but as the day progressed, that too was changed to trail 3-ridge-pir sohawa road.

First problem was reaching rest area 2 on Trail 3. It was exhausting as I had already been walking from Metro station in the sun. it was 3 PM when I start the walk. After catching the breath at rest area and making up my mind, I resumed.
Hike to the Monal was not that bad as previous one as sun had gone bit down.

Now, I suddenly changed my plan to follow the ridge next to Saidpur village road instead of Trail 4.
After Monsoon many trails disappear under the bushes and grass. The route I opted had the same fate. I found another route to the ridge as there were full 4G signals and I was looking at the map. As I reached the start of the ridge, I realized that it was not only steep but had tall and fresh grass which would make it slippery... and Yes it did.

I followed the ridge and saw sun peaking behind the Margalla hills ready to disappear.
I reached the rock from where I could not find the way around it. i took a detour on the right side and ended deep in the bushed and trees. I had to crawl over my knees to get out of there as i could see on maps that ridge was close by. back on the ridge, I decided to quite the hike as it was too long and sun had gone down.
it was only matter of minutes for darkness to over come.

At the next intersection with road, i got out and walked some kilometers on the road before being picked up by a gentleman on bike who dropped me off at Centaurus.

The problem was, I planned a relatively longer hike while I did not have enough day light. Had I gone for trail 4, I would have caught in darkness even before hitting the mid of the trail. Had I started the trail earlier in the day, i would have passed out from the heat and exhaustion.

I did make all the right moves and two weeks later, I went to do the hike which combined Trail-5-3-4 all in one day.