Heavy snow hampers access to Saiful Muluk Lake

MANSEHRA: The Saiful Muluk Lake, which is unusually wrapped under the white blanket in the last week of May, attracts a small number of visitors as the artery which leads to this fairyland has yet to be cleared for four-wheelers. “This is rare to experience the Saiful Muluk Lake still beneath the heavy snow even in the last quarter of May, but frankly one who moves to this romantic place falls in love with it,” Ijaz Ahmad Jazi, who led a group of his friends and visitors to the lake on foot, said on Wednesday.

He said that though Kaghan Development Authority was clearing an 8km artery leading to this captivating Saiful Muluk Lake, it would take more days to clear that bumpy and dangerous jeep track to ensure access for visitors to that heavenly destination. “This journey took us almost 5 hours on foot to reach Saiful Muluk from Naran and almost all friends of mine were shivering owing to the severe cold at lake and its surroundings,” Jazi said.

He said that Saiful Muluk Lake, which was the romantic place of a fantasy character of Prince Saif and Pari Jamal used to melt down in recent years before the start of May owing to scorching heat but this time the weather was still chillier. The National Highways Authority has cleared the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road to all sorts of traffic up to the Barawai area of Kaghan Valley and work was still underway to reopen that artery till Babusar Top the highest altitude boundary area between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.