The Mysterious Lake With A Floating Island, Parashar Lake

Two of my office colleagues came up with an idea of trekking to Parashar lake. I pulled my laptop to find more about it. It is located approx 50 km away from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh.

Bhima, one of the Pandava brothers rams his elbow on one of the mountains which created a dent in land while returning from Kurukshetra with Pandavas. This dent became a lake, it is believed that Rishi Parashar meditated on the banks of this lake. Hence the name Parashar lake.

There is a floating island which keeps on revolving and changes its position at regular intervals. A team of scientists and divers came here to determine the depth of the lake but they were unable to reach the bottom. It is still a mystery which needs to be deciphered. After such incidents, the lake is declared sacred and divers are not allowed to dive inside this lake. Despite of weather the water of sacred lake remains warm and at the same level.

The journey started from Gurgaon with group of 17 amazing people. We stopped at Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba in Murthal to eat dinner. At midnight, our car broke down somewhere in Punjab. Luckily we were able to find out mechanic shop and got it repaired.

We started trekking uphill, crossed a river and went straight into dense mountains. We met a local guide on the way who redirected us to right trail.

We ate light lunch in dense forest and started trekking uphill again. Most of my friends including me were trekking first time so we have taken many breaks. Thanks to Partha Sir who kept motivating each one of us. The sun was sinking down and we were still in jungle !

The sun disappeared completely, we had limited torch and phone batteries were almost exhausted. We kept walking carefully helping each other. After sometime, we met a group of four friends, one girl lost the hope that she could reach campsite. She was sitting on a rock and was completely exhausted. We tried to motivate her and dragged her to campsite.

On reaching the campsite we had to choose one option for sleeping – tents or guest house. Since I had never experienced sleeping in tents before so I raised my hand for sleeping in tents. And the struggle started ! It was freezing cold, I layered socks and slipped into my sleeping bag. I was unable to sleep whole night due to cold. I lost my patience and unzipped tent. I saw infinite glowing stars all over the dark sky. I kept staring at that view for some minutes. It was mesmerizing and beautiful.

How to reach Parashar

We hired a private Tempo traveller from Gurgaon itself so we didn’t get into hustle of changing buses.

• Delhi – Chandigarh – Mandi – Bijani – Kamand – Baggi – Prashar Lake
• Delhi – Chandigarh – Kullu – Bhuntar – Bajaura – Shayari – Bagi – Prashar Lake

Best time to visit Parashar

If you are snow clad visit during winters(Jan – Feb). Monsoon is perfect if one want to see vibrant colors and floating island. I visited this place in February.

Thanks for reading 🙂