Deosai & Skardu
The Deosai Plains and Skardu
The second-highest plateau on earth: a steppe at 4,000 metres, covered in flowers and brown bears in July. Plus Skardu, Shigar and the cold desert of Sarfaranga.
Author: Qammer Wazir, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Duration
- 9 days
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Highest point
- 4,100 m
- Best season
- Jul – Sep
- Budget on the ground
- 40–70 € per day
- Group size
- 2–10
Overview
A steppe at four thousand metres
Deosai means roughly “land of giants”. It is a plateau of some three thousand square kilometres, free of snow between July and September and then covered in wildflowers. There are no trees. There are streams, marmots, foxes and around fifty Himalayan brown bears.
What holds me here is the emptiness. In the Alps every square kilometre is developed. Here you drive for hours across a plain that looks exactly as it did a thousand years ago.
Combining with Skardu
Skardu is the staging post for every big Karakoram expedition and has enough for a few days: the fort above the town, the Shigar valley, and the Sarfaranga cold desert, where sand dunes genuinely sit between seven-thousanders.
Cost and effort
Forty to seventy euros a day, including jeep, driver and lodging. Deosai itself needs a four-wheel drive. The track is rough but not dangerous. Physically the whole trip is undemanding; what tires you is altitude and the cold at night.
When
July to September only. Before and after, the plateau is under snow and closed.
Day by day
1–2
Travel to Skardu
Fly, or two days by road. Skardu sits at 2,200 m on the Indus.
Day 3
Skardu and around
Kharpocho Fort above the town, Satpara Lake, the bazaar.
Day 4
Shigar valley
Drive into the Shigar valley to the restored seventeenth-century fort. This is where Baltoro expeditions set out from.
Day 5
Sarfaranga cold desert
Sand dunes at 2,200 metres, ringed by seven-thousanders. One of the strangest landscapes I know.
Day 6
Up onto Deosai
Over the Sadpara pass onto the plateau. Above 4,000 metres the trees stop and a steppe begins that runs to the horizon.
Day 7
Sheosar Lake and bear watching
The lake at 4,142 m, plus a real chance of brown bears at a safe distance. Night at a camp on the plain, very cold and very full of stars.
Day 8
Deosai to Astore or back
Cross the plateau towards Astore, or return to Skardu.
Day 9
Return
From Skardu or Gilgit.
Practical details
- Permits
- The Deosai national park fee is paid at the entrance.
- Visa
- E-visa, ordinary tourist type.
- Acclimatisation
- Deosai sits consistently around 4,000 m. Driving up from Skardu at 2,200 m, do not sleep on the plateau on your first day.
- Getting there
- Fly Islamabad–Skardu or two days on the Karakoram Highway.
Photos
