Sakal Ban Hike - ( Chhangla Gali - Chitralla Forest - Retri Gali )

Track starts from 'Cheetah Point' a few kilometers after the Chhangla Gali. There are couple of restaurants there including 'Village Cafe and Restaurant' and ' Shigher Restaurant'.
On left of the road lies the 'Chitralla Forest', known for leopards.

The plan initially was different but we ended up doing this one. We had breakfast at Tulip Hotel at Chhangla Pass where a mute guy showed us a little snake he had caught in a bottle. They had an eagle for photography too. After breakfast we parked out vehicle at the cafe mentioned above and started the hike.

It started as an easy trek till we reached a meadow. Sometime after the meadow the trail was lost so we decided descending without trail and in no time we was rather climbing down. The slope was very steep but thankfully there were plenty of bushes and branches which supported our descend. At some points I even sat on the ground and sided a little.
A little late we found a small trail, and sometime later a wide trail.
We started going towards right. After passing through a small meadow we again started descending on a ridge. As we were in very dense forest, there rarely was any view available till we reached a point from where the houses of Kuza gali were visible. We heard the voices of people and sound of water. Following the sound, we reached at a peaceful water spring.
It was still far from the houses so we had some time to relax and rejuvenate.

We resumed our hike by returning to the trail above and went on the other side of the forest till we reach another meadow at the edge of a ridge. Meadow was full of flower, it was then I decided to name this hike 'Sakal Ban'. Which is a 700+ years old folk song by 'Amir Khusro' for the festival of spring/basant capturing the joy of people at arrival of colors in their lives.
After meadow we kept going right on the trail to finally reach the jeep road nearby 'Retri Gali'. From there we took a trail which went left to reach back to the parking. However just after sometime trail disappeared and we were again climbing up the very steep mountain using bushes and branched. It was fun but exhausting due to the heat.

Sometimes later we found out trail but since the trail would have lead us back to village we went to the old formula of bushes and branches. I had a half sleeve shirt on and my arms were scratched well by the time we reached back to the meadow from where it all started.

We made it back to the Parking a little after 3 pm, whereas we had started the hike at 10 am. It was a view less jungle hike but the fun part was the climbing throughout the hike.