Zozilla - The first pass on the way

We started early in the morning. Our guide was saying that we need to leave early else we can be blocked just outside of Sonamarg. This is because the military convoys pass that way and the vehicle traffic on the other side is stopped till the convoy passes. The first vehicle in the convoy has a red flag and the last one has a green flag. You are expected to stop till the green flag bearing vehicle has passed you.

So off we started from Sonamarg and very soon started climbing a mountain. After some time our guide pointed us to the valley below and told us that it was the base camp for Amarnath Yatra. This was the Baltal base camp. The other route is via Pahalgam. Our guide showed us the route the yatris would take. It was between two mountains and it is supposed to continue for something like 18 kms or more. It was a wonderful sight. I guess you may have a different perspective when you actually walk that route but from high above it was lovely.

The Sindh river was flowing with us for quite some time. The road took us to the Zozilla pass. This was name which we had heard during the Kargil conflict. This was the first pass we crossed on our way to Leh from Srinagar. The pass is almost like a flat land. I was expecting to see two sides of mountain ranges from the pass but there was no such sight from the Zozilla pass. What was around was lot of snow. There were some lovely snow formations in the river. There would be a smooth chunk of snow in some very modernistic shape and would have an hole in the middle through which the cold waters of Sindh passed through. We got down here and walked around on the snow. It was freezing cold in that area. Our guide pointed to a soldier who was perched high atop a mountain, all alone. We waved to him and he waved back. Wonder how he is able to sustain himself there. It can get absolutely lonely there.

We crossed the Zozilla pass and after sometime I saw a creature, which seemed like a fox from a distance, run on the mountain. I asked others to look but the creature vanished. A few kilometers later we got our first good look at the Himalayan Marmot. It was not a fox but looks more like a beaver. We saw some stout fellows there. We were to see a lot more of them on our journey but nothing like seeing them for the first time. They were outside for a few seconds and then ran and vanished into their burrows. We stopped at an army place as we found a restroom there. I spoke to an army person who had come from Wynad in Kerala. That is an area I had visited and he was from Manantavady, another area I have been to. The driver found a skull of an Ibex, with horns and all. Harini caught hold of it and I took a couple of snaps.

Then we started for Drass and Kargil, names etched in every Indian consciousness