Gurez or Gurais, also pronounced Gorai in the local Shina language, is a valley located in the high Himalayas, about 86 kilometres (53 mi) from Bandipore and 123 kilometres (76 mi) from Srinagar in northern Jammu and Kashmir, India. At about 8,000 feet (2,400 m) above sea level, the valley is surrounded by snow capped mountains. It has diverse fauna and wildlife including the Himalayan brown bear and the snow leopard. The Kishanganga River flows through the valley. The road to Gilgit runs through Gurais.Gurez is a place for solo travellers, as the drive from Bandipura to Gurez is not comfortable. Just for information, Gurez is 80 km from Bandipura, a 4-4.5 hour drive. The Razdan pass is thrown open in May/June and the road is closed for traffic by mid November. There are no specific attractions in the Gurez valley, but the experience of being there and serene environs is worth the stay at Gurez.
The Gurez Valley is a fertile, fifty-mile cleft carved through the Himalayas by the mighty Kishenganga River. It sits directly below the high-altitude Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistani sectors of Kashmir and is one of the most tensely guarded frontiers in the world. Thanks to its topography, Gurez, which is on the Indian side, has long been a popular gateway for Pakistani militants attempting to sneak into Indian territory. Hence, for security purposes, Gurez had been closed off to the outside world by the Indian army from 1947 until August, 2007, when it was deemed safe enough to open it up to visitors. These are the first images taken by a Western photographer to emerge from the area in over sixty years.
The people who live in Gurez belong to the Dard Shin tribe. Apart from the main town of Dawar, most of the crooked wooden villages that dot the floodplain have no electricity, plumbing, or telephone. For half the year, the tribespeople are completely sealed off from the rest of the world, as the one road in and out of the valley is buried deep beneath snow. In the highlands surrounding Gurez, nomadic Gujjar shepherds arrive every summer from other parts of Kashmir, and from Punjab, to graze their goats.
This is a deeply isolated place that's beautiful and weird, idyllic and surreal, at once an alpine Shanrgi-La and a militarized zone: dazzling fields of wildflowers are cut by coils of razor wire that unroll to the horizon; shepherds climb one slope as soldiers patrol another. The 19th century British historian, Sir Walter Lawrence, who investigated this old tributary of the Silk Road, called Gurez a "valley of unexplored treasures" framed by mountains of "indescribable grandeur." It still is, said by " Michael Benanav"
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