Of Skardu's two Kachura lakes, Upper Kachura is the one nature kept for itself. A short walk down from the road-head through apricot orchards brings you to a bowl of astonishingly deep blue — the lake is around 70 m deep — held between steep rocky slopes about half an hour's drive west of Skardu.
Where Lower Kachura was landscaped into the Shangrila Resort, Upper Kachura remains a village lake. Wooden boats ferry visitors across the still water, anglers cast for trout, and small cliff-side cafés serve tea and grilled fish on terraces hanging over the shore. In summer the water warms just enough at the edges for the brave to swim; most of the year it stays glacially cold.
The setting rewards walkers. Trails loop around the shoreline and climb to viewpoints where the blue disc of the lake sits against the grey Indus valley and white Karakoram horizon, and a path continues toward the Soq valley behind. Photographers should come in morning calm, when reflections are glassy and the light reaches into the water.
Most visitors combine Upper Kachura with the Shangrila Resort on Lower Kachura, ten minutes away — wild lake first, famous resort second — and many add the Katpana dunes on the drive back to Skardu for a full classic day.
