Nar Hotar - Chanali Hill - Santora - Khuyain

On a beautiful Sunday of February, we left Islamabad through Kashmir highway towards Murree. Just before Nandkot/ Tret Syedan, near the Arukas Lift, we took a turn towards Arukas. From there we drove towards to Summar and then to Danna.
There are countless places called “Danna” as it literally means top, so wherever there is a top, there is a “Danna”. From Danna we descend towards “Narhotar”.
Narhotar is a small village at the bank of Haro River’s right tributary which starts from Ghora Gali.
We parked the Vehicle a few meters before the lift, near a mosque and in front of the shops.
We took the double lift. First ride takes you in the middle and then another ride to the village of Narhotar. Rs. 50 per person ride was awesome.
Hike was mostly on the road, we got company of a local who was off to village of Chanali. There was a road going upwards towards “Murryal Syedan”, but Chanali forest was our destination. The local mentioned a Garden “Bagheecha” which has colonial era deodar trees. Initially we thought to visit it but later dropped the idea.
We passed through villages and found a spring, in which many water pumps were put in by people to pull the water up to their houses. The local offered us lunch as he reached his destination but we thanked him for his guidance and continued. There was a fire on the dry grass a few people were trying to put it off, we passed by it. Road has blocked the fire from spreading atleast in one direction.
In upper Chanali, we offered prayer and inquired about the path towards Satora. Now there is very interesting geography. We were on a land in between two tributaries of Haro river and starting from the right tributary, we were off to it’s left tributary. Satora was situated on the bank of the left tributary but we did not intend to visit it as it was on the other side of the river. Two weeks ago we were on the hill above Satora and didn’t find the way to hike down to it.
That time we noticed that the Chanali forest was on fire and now we were passing through the burned forest. It was all black, as if we were in a cursed land. After the forest we took an old jeep road back to Narhotar. We met some people and a lot of dogs. At one point we heard two dogs barking from a distance at us, we took a short cut in the bushed to avoid them. We were successful.
Machinery was at work to build a new road. We reached the village of Khuyan where the locals not one guided us but insisted to stay but we wanted to get back. It had started to get dark. We reached a concrete but very steep road on which we hiked down in the dark to reach the Narhotar village.
Dog again, I felt like he was going to jump right at me. There was the number of the lift operator “0321-5530624”, I called for the lift and soon we were back to the vehicle.

On our way back we enjoyed oranges, despite having cough. Our way back was from a different route as we passed Ghambheer, Bagla and Baroha to get to the Kashmir highway at Chattar Park.

It was an amazing hike with very cooperative locals and amazing views