The SDRF team, which was the first to reach on foot an artificial lake formed over Rishiganga at a height of 2800 metres, said on Tuesday it had a tough time reaching there as roads were washed out.
"The route to the lake via Pang village was washed out. We tried to reach it through another village Muraina but with no roads in sight we didn't know which way to approach the lake situated at around 2800 metres," said Inspector Sanjay Upreti who was part of the 12-member SDRF team led by Commandant Navneet Bhullar that went to the lake on foot.
They had to walk through forests and steep gorges with the help of ropes for 12-13 hours to reach the place where they set up a base camp. "Steep gorges had replaced roads that had been washed out up to 500 metres here and there. On the basis of an idea formed about its possible route during an aerial recce undertaken earlier and help from a local guide we reached a place about an hour short of the lake where we set up a camp office before sunset.
"When we reached the lake we saw that the area near it had been hit by a compound avalanche. There was swamp all around which contained sludge, stones, trees and blocks of ice each the size of a car," he said.