Development of a new chairlift and associated trails (76FR23273)

When it's the umpteenth straight day of temperatures of 110-plus, it's time to head for the hills. So we joined up with an embassy-led trip to the nearby Murree Hills, where the temperatures are 20 to 30 degrees lower. Our first stop was Dunga Gali, a small village resort that provides access to Ayubia National Park. We hiked one of the most popular paths through the park, the Pipeline Track, an easy four-kilometer trail that hugs the hillside.

Along the way, there are wonderful views of the protected forest within the park. On a clear day, you can see the distant snowcaps of the Himalayas, but because of the haze on this day, it was not meant to be (left). We also didn't spy any of the many species that call the park home: leopards, bears, flying squirrels, and foxes. But we did hear plenty of shrieks from high-flying birds and smelled messes left by ever-pesky monkeys. And carved in the rocks of the hill we saw a scorpion (right), a symbol of one of the regiments that helped build the eponymous pipeline in 1930 to provide water to the hill villages.

The trail from Dunga Gali ends in Ghora Dhaka, where there is a collection of restaurants and shops clustered around a popular attraction (left). On this day, the famous Ayubia chairlift was particularly busy because school had just let out for the summer, and there was a religious festival taking place nearby (right).

We disregarded any disrespect we had for Pakistani standards and took a round-trip ride up and down the hillside. In the end, the ride was no scarier than similar lifts at the Ohio State Fair, the SkyGlider, and Cedar Point, the Sky Ride. The most frightening part of the ride is getting off because the carriages don't stop or slow down, so you have to scramble off before you are jack-knifed by a metal car. Despite flashbacks of a near-death experience with a ski lift at Snow Trails, I was able to dismount without injury.

I'm not sure the view from the top was worth risking life and limb, but it was definitely beautiful. You could get a 360-degree view of the hill-filled Abbottabad district. For those of you paying attention, that is the district that contains the city of Abbottabad, where Osama bin Laden was killed. His compound, however, will never become a tourist attraction because it has been torn down.

The chairlift, on the other hand, is a full-blown tourist trap, complete with hoards of hawkers -- literally. There are quite a few young men who encourage you to pay for the privilege of holding a falcon (okay, it's not a hawk, but still). Others try to put air guns in your hands, so you will pay to pop some balloons. All along the road are villagers with roasted-corn and fresh-coconut stands, and around just about every corner hang rows of carpets, scarves, and shalwar kameez in makeshift showrooms.

You might notice the small windows available for our on-the-road sightseeing. Because of security requirements, all embassy-led trips are taken in armored vehicles. Although you won't see them in any of my pictures, a cadre of police escorted us everywhere, by car and by foot. Not only did they protect us from petty theft, which can occur on the hill trails, but they also helped us cut through the line at the chairlift and through traffic on the roads.

Although it was a little uncomfortable to be catered to in this manner, it was definitely preferable to other transportation options. After all, we could've been precariously perched atop a bus, made even more dangerous by severe switchbacks winding up the mountains. Indeed, we saw a bus that had overturned but luckily had not tumbled off an unrailed precipice.  

The roads seemed too narrow to accommodate any volume of traffic, which was particularly heavy on this day because the broader highway to the area had been shut down by a rockslide. Not even the most gloriously decorated bus (left), part of the truck-art tradition in Pakistan, or camel (right) garnered enough attention to get other drivers to yield. 

All in all, our first foray into greater Pakistan was a success. We discovered that the local joke -- "Islamabad, a beautiful city just minutes from Pakistan" -- holds some truth. Islamabad is immensely fascinating in and of itself, but it was definitely worth venturing farther afield to get a broader view of the country -- and a respite of cooler weather.