Blind Lake (Jarba Zhou)
The lake with no inlet, no outlet and unreasonable clarity.
Blind Lake — Jarba Zhou — is a spring-fed lake near Shigar with no visible inlet or outlet, ringed by sand and poplars with Karakoram walls behind. Its stillness makes it the region's most reliable mirror; paddleboats and a shoreline walk fill an unhurried hour or two.
The name describes the hydrology, not the view: fed invisibly from below, the lake sits unmoving even when the Shigar wind works everything around it. Photographers get reflections Kachura only offers at dawn — here they last until noon.
~30 min from Shigar Fort / 1 h from Skardu, just off the Askole road; a natural pause on any Shigar day.
Questions, answered
Why is it called Blind Lake?
Local naming for a lake that neither takes nor gives a river — no inlet, no outlet, spring-fed from beneath. The Balti name Jarba Zhou is gaining ground on signboards.