Skardu

Skardu sits in a wide valley on the upper Indus, and the first thing that surprises people is how much room there is. The river runs broad and grey through the middle of it, there is sand along the banks and in the flats above them, and the mountains that close it in are the highest in the country. The Shigar valley opens off it to the north and carries on towards the roadhead the Karakoram expeditions leave from. The Shyok goes east towards Khaplu. Above the town there is Kharpocho fort on its rock, the Manthal Buddha carved into a boulder on the way out to Satpara, and the lakes at Satpara and Kachura, which is the water everybody has already seen a photograph of.

The Deosai plateau is the other reason to come, and it is a different kind of place from the valley below it. It is flat, enormous and treeless, high enough that the air is thin and the weather changes while you are watching it, and it is a national park with Himalayan brown bear in it. The road onto it is only open for part of the year.

The people of Baltistan speak Balti, which is closer to Tibetan than to anything else you will have heard in Pakistan, and the writing on the older stones up here reflects that. Worth knowing before you go, because it is the part visitors tend to miss: the porters, cooks and high altitude guides who carry the world's K2 and Concordia expeditions are from these valleys, and mountaineering here is a profession with its own families and its own history rather than scenery. The old fort palaces at Shigar and Khaplu are still standing and have been restored.

Two practical things about getting there, neither of which is settled for this trip and both of which are worth knowing now. There is a flight from Islamabad and there is a road, the road runs a long way through mountains, and the flight is decided by the weather on the morning rather than by the timetable. Whichever way a group goes in, altitude is a real consideration on the plateau and it is best taken slowly rather than in one push, particularly with older travellers or children in the party.

We have taken groups up to Baltistan before. What we hold on those departures, including how sure we are of each detail, is set out on our tour archive rather than summarised here,.