Kolahoi is the peak that shapes the skyline above Pahalgam, and the trek to its glacier is the closest most people get to standing at the foot of it. The route starts at Aru Valley and runs through Lidderwat’s open meadows before the final push to the glacier itself — three to four days round trip at an easy pace, faster if you’re fit and the weather cooperates.
Lidderwat is the trek’s best-kept surprise: a wide grazing meadow where Gujjar and Bakarwal herders still bring their flocks in summer, with the river running through the middle of it. Camp here the first night and the walk feels less like a trek and more like arriving somewhere people actually live, seasonally.
Day two pushes past Sekiwas toward the glacier’s snout, where the ice face and the moraine field ahead of it make clear why this was one of the first Himalayan glaciers surveyed by British climbers in the 1900s.
Good to know: hire a local guide in Pahalgam or Aru — the upper trail isn’t always well marked. Best window is July to early September; the glacier crossing is unsafe outside that.