Musa ka Musala

1. Journey to Musa ka Musalla
In last summer, we arranged our “PTCL NGN HCTE RWP” team visit to the
hill station named “Musa ka Musalla”, which is situated opposite to the Kaghan
Mountains. This mountain has a shape like spider structure. Ridges come from all
directions and converge near Musalla summit giving it a shape pretty much of a
spider. We were a group of six including me Engr. Khalid Sarwar, SE NGN Mr.
Nasrullah Khan, FS Mr. Chand Parvez Khan, T/Tech Mr. Ghulam Murtaza and my
two Cousins. This Place is naturally enriched with high peak mountains, greenish
meadows, plateaus and forests.
Musa Ka Musalla stands at an altitude of 4080 meters at the junction
of Siran and Kaghan Valleys in Himalaya. It is situated 150 kilometers north
of Abbottabad . A road from Mansehra/Shinkiari, leads up to Mandakucha the
most frequently used track is Mandakucha, Jacha, Bikhi, Jabbar, Khorri (Gali) and
Choti ZiaraGali.

2. The mountain is 13,400 ft above sea level and can be seen from places
many kilometers away. The mount has the appearance of a prayer mat is and is
thus named Musa Ka Musala. The mountain is icescaped all year long. The
mountain top is considered a ziarat {Islamic shrine} by the localities, used to offer
their daily prayers at the peak.
There are many possible options to reach Musa ka Musalla top. It can be
accessed from both Kaghan and Siran valleys. We have chosen the route from
Manshera. We decided to gather up near Taxila, where our colleague Mr. Murtaza
picked us on his car and we left near 5pm in evening for Mansehra which is
140km from Islamabad and takes roughly 3hours by road. In Mansehra we stayed
at one of our relatives, Mr Zahid, who had arranged Dinner and Night stay in
Mansehra.

3. From Mansehra we left for Mandakucha via Shinkiari which is 25km from
Mansehra. In Shinkiari, we spent our time in enjoying beautiful sceneries and
Different Local Product Shops. After that, we had our lunch, Special Kabab-Roti
and than we left for Mandakucha, which is located in the base of Musa ka Musalla
Mountain. It was around 20km travel but it was a dirt/kachi road on height, which
took around 1-2 hrs by Car.

4. Here we took some rest at our guider house because he was our relative
from Mandakucha village. We hired a donkey as carrier on Rs. 3000/day with a
guide named Waqas. He had good information about the route and his father also
joined us later to help us in route. There are two resturants in the path with river
view where you can afford lunch in Rs.100/person. From the starting point, the
trek to the top of Musalla takes approx 12 hours as we started by 09:00 hrs and
reached at our last mile that was called Galli at 2100 Hrs. we have camp at Bikhi
for our lunch and we cooked here on forest wood by our self and took some rest
at that point.
At next we took rest at Khori and eat some fruits which we bought from
Mandakucha. In the way we did not found any shop to buy so whenever anyone
visit this place, its better to take all necessary items from Mandakucha
respectively. At Galli we stayed in a small room called “maseet” on top of the Galli
Peak.

5. In early morning we returned guide and his donkey as it was not possible to
climb with luggage and donkey, so we started hiking towards top of the Mountain
“Musa ka Musala” without our luggage. We had few difficulties in form of rain and
windy condition with thunder storms. The track was very steep and gave us a real
tough time for hiking. We reached at top of the Mountain approximately after 4
hours near 12pm.

6. Top of Peak was covered with ice and it is a flat peak around 1km cover
area. We were excited to witness Clouds at same level. We spent 2 hours at
peak, where we enjoyed our meal on ice carpet and also used ice as water as
our drinking water bottles were finished, after that we enjoyed the beautiful
scenery on top like kaghan and naran mountains, we can also see balakot from
mountain and captured some memories in form of video/photos.
After 2 hours stay at top we decided to return back and It took 2 hours to
reach down to Galli Point and we decided to keep going for Mandakucha and we
reached at 8pm without any rest because of night time. Next Morning we directly
returned back to Rawalpindi without any further stay.

7. It was an unforgettable experience with my ptcl colleagues because this
was completely another world, with its climate, greenery, traditions, and customs
that charm and dip you in the extraordinary atmosphere of calmness and
composure. I remember it now with freshness and understand that it was the best
journey of my life.