Gilgit-Baltistan Grand Tour: Hunza, Khunjerab, Skardu and Deosai

The Grand Tour is the one trip that does the whole of Gilgit-Baltistan in a single loop. Over 12 days it strings together the four things people usually come north for on separate visits: the Hunza Valley, the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 metres on the China border, the lakes and forts of Skardu, and the Deosai Plateau, the second-highest plateau on Earth. If you have one long trip to give northern Pakistan and want to see all of it done properly, this is that itinerary.

It runs through three mountain systems and an enormous range of country. In Hunza you get Karimabad at about 2,438 metres, the Baltit and Altit forts, Attabad Lake and the Passu Cones, then the full-day climb to the Khunjerab gate. In Baltistan you get Skardu at about 2,228 metres, the Kachura lakes and Shigar Fort. And between them, the centrepiece: Deosai, averaging 4,114 metres, a treeless high plateau of wildflower meadows and the Sheosar Lake at 4,250 metres, set aside in 1993 to protect the Himalayan brown bear.

Deosai is the reason this is a summer-only product. The plateau is snowbound most of the year and is only open roughly mid-June to mid-September, so the whole 12-day tour is gated to that window. July and August are the sweet spot: Deosai open and in flower, the Khunjerab Pass clear, and the warmest, most settled weather across the region. Outside that window the loop simply cannot run as designed.

Over 12 days we run it with a private 4x4 and a dedicated guide, sequencing the two high points, Khunjerab and Deosai, so that altitude builds sensibly rather than hitting you cold. It is graded easy in effort because you ride rather than trek, but it is a big trip with long drive days and two days above 4,000 metres, and we plan it as one continuous loop rather than a rushed checklist.

Hunza comes first. Karimabad at around 2,438 metres under Baltit Fort, the older Altit Fort below it, Attabad Lake formed by the 2010 landslide, and the Passu Cones viewpoint below the 6,106-metre Tupopdan ridge. From upper Hunza the tour makes the full-day run to the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 metres, the highest paved international border crossing in the world, through Khunjerab National Park where marmots, ibex and, rarely, the snow leopard live.

Then Baltistan. The drive south crosses to Skardu at about 2,228 metres for the Kachura lakes, Shangrila on Lower Kachura, and Shigar Fort, the restored 17th-century Amacha palace an hour out of town. Skardu is the staging point for the plateau.

Deosai is the climax. Averaging 4,114 metres, it is the second-highest plateau on Earth after Tibet's Changtang, a vast treeless sweep of summer wildflowers, marmots and the Himalayan brown bear that the park was created to protect in 1993. At its far side lies Sheosar Lake at 4,250 metres, one of the highest lakes of its size in the region.

July and August are the optimal months and the trip is summer-only. The hard constraint is Deosai, which is snowbound most of the year and only accessible roughly mid-June to mid-September. The Khunjerab Pass needs to be clear in the same window, which it reliably is from about May to October, so high summer is where the two overlap best.

We do not run this loop outside the Deosai window, because the plateau is the centrepiece and a Grand Tour without it is just two separate trips. Booking for July or August also gives you the warmest weather, the wildflower bloom on Deosai and the best odds on any flight legs.

In effort it is easy: you are a passenger in a 4x4, not a trekker, and there is no climbing involved. The challenge is distance and altitude. This is a big loop with several long drive days, and it includes two days above 4,000 metres, the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 metres and the Deosai crossing at over 4,100 metres.

We sequence the trip so that altitude builds rather than spikes, putting time in Hunza and Skardu at 2,200 to 2,500 metres before the high days, and we keep time at the very top short. Even so, the Khunjerab and Deosai double is demanding for anyone with heart or lung conditions, and we ask guests to be honest about their health before booking.

The Grand Tour combines four of our trips into one summer loop, and any of them can be booked on its own if you have less time or want to go deeper in one place. If Hunza is the draw, the Hunza Valley tour gives you the forts, Attabad and the Passu Cones at a slower pace. For Baltistan on its own there is the Skardu scenic route with the lakes, the cold desert and the forts, and for the plateau alone there is the dedicated Deosai tour. And if the high border is what you came for, the Khunjerab Pass tour runs it as the headline. The Grand Tour is for travellers who want all of it on one trip.

Gilgit-Baltistan is the northernmost region of Pakistan, a vast mountain territory where the Karakoram, the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush ranges meet, bordering China to the north, Afghanistan's Wakhan corridor to the west and Indian-administered Kashmir to the south-east. Its main hubs are Gilgit and Skardu, and its best-known valleys, Hunza, Nagar, Shigar and the Deosai Plateau, are the backbone of this grand tour. This is the high heart of the country: it holds K2 and four more of the world's fourteen 8,000-metre peaks, hundreds of glaciers and some of the highest road passes on Earth. Most travellers reach it either by the short flight from Islamabad to Gilgit or Skardu, or overland up the Karakoram Highway, the same route our tour follows through the mountains.

Not many places pack so much into one region. Gilgit-Baltistan has the greatest concentration of high peaks anywhere outside the Everest region, including K2, Nanga Parbat, Rakaposhi and the Baltoro giants, alongside the world's second-highest plateau at Deosai, the turquoise Attabad Lake and the Shandur polo ground. It was a crossroads of the ancient Silk Road, and that history shows in the Buddhist rock carvings along the Indus, the centuries-old forts of Hunza and a patchwork of languages, from Burushaski and Shina to Balti and Wakhi, that changes valley by valley. The result is a rare combination of mountain scenery and living culture, which is exactly why the grand tour strings Hunza, Khunjerab, Skardu and Deosai together rather than visiting just one.

We run every component of this loop in its own right, so the Grand Tour is not a stitched-together experiment: it is four trips we know cold, sequenced into one. We base the whole thing in summer for a reason, because Deosai only opens roughly mid-June to mid-September and we will not sell a Grand Tour that cannot reach its centrepiece. Our guides are local to Gilgit-Baltistan, we order the altitude so the Khunjerab and Deosai days build sensibly, and we hold road fallbacks for any flight leg. Twelve days is a lot of country, and we have run this exact ground often enough to pace it rather than race it.