A tour to Hidden Meadows

Long weekend was around the corner and we were short of ideas on what should be our destination for trekking. After lot of brainstorming and considering different options we decided to visit heavenly pastures of ‘Danna’. The trip was unique in a sense that all the planning and organizing was on my shoulders. Also we were accompanied by some novice team members who brought in with them lot of fun and surprises.
We were a group of 07 team members and started our journey and reached ‘Mansehra’ at midnight where our jeep was already waiting for us to take us to ‘Khanian’. It was that time when I experienced the scariest moment of my travels. Our jeep was passing through an area of Land Sliding. All of a sudden, a giant rock dropped right in front of our jeep while some small rocks hit it. He pushed the paddle and we managed to cross the area unhurt.
So we reached ‘Khanian’ at around 0800Hrs from where we started our trek. I clocked the trek in 05 hours reaching ‘Danna Meadows’ at around 1300Hrs with guide. Couple of members arrived at 1200Hrs and some at around 1500Hrs. There are couple of rest houses at ‘Danna Meadows’ where one can spend a night. We couldn't manage to get their keys so we decided to look for an alternative. There were few seasonal shelters built by locals but they were not in good condition. The only reasonable place was a mosque and we camped there. The mosque was well ventilated and it was something to worry about. After having a dinner we prepared ourselves for a cold and long night. We put on ourselves every possible piece of cloth and fell asleep. THE NIGHT WAS COLD THOUGH.
Next day, we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning. Had our breakfast and then later on had some BBQ and roasted chicken. After consultation with our guide, we decided to descend into ‘Kaghan’ instead of taking the same route back. At around 1100hrs we started our journey back. The very first descend was very tough. Even our guide had to take his shoes off to prevent a slip. It was a difficult terrain and there was no path, danger of slipping down was also present and some of group member had difficulty is crossing that part. Trek from there on-wards was relatively simple and very refreshing. Around in the middle half of our team members took the porter and descended to ‘Khanian’ due to slow pace and fatigue. Four of us along with the guide followed the trek to ‘Kaghan’. Later on, we all gathered at a designated point in ‘Khanian’ and started our journey towards home.