Yusmarg travel guide

Yusmarg sits in the western part of Budgam district, in a high alpine bowl of the Pir Panjal range, at roughly 2,400 metres (published figures for the altitude vary by source). It is about 47 km from Srinagar, a drive of under two hours through the town of Charari Sharief. The name is usually translated as the Meadow of Jesus, after a local belief that he stayed here; treat that as local tradition, not recorded history. What you will actually find is a wide grassy meadow, fir and pine forest on its edges, and the Doodhganga stream running through it.

This is a place for slow days, not for ticking off monuments. The classic outings are a pony ride or a walk across the meadow, a 4 km trek to the small blue-green Nilnag lake, and, for fit and well-equipped walkers with a guide, the longer hike of around 10 km to the Sang-e-Safed valley, where a lake stays mostly under ice even in summer. Nearby Tosamaidan, a much larger pasture in the Khag area, opened to visitors in 2016 after decades as an army firing range.

Plan around the season. The road is closed by snow in winter and the meadow is not open to tourists then, so the real window runs from late spring to autumn. Facilities are modest: government-run huts, a few eating places and local pony handlers. Older travellers will find the meadow itself gentle and level, but the trails beyond it are uneven, and the weather at this altitude turns quickly. Many visitors do it as a day out from Srinagar, and an overnight stay in a hut rewards you with the early and late hours when the day crowds are gone.

On the way you pass Charar-e-Sharief, the shrine of the 15th-century Kashmiri Sufi saint Sheikh Noor-ud-Din, which is worth a respectful stop of its own.