Skardu
The main town of Baltistan, on the Indus at 2,228 metres, where expeditions gather before the road to K2.
- Arrival
- Skardu International · KDU
- To the town
- About 9 km to the centre
- Private jets
- Runways over 3,600 m, shared with the air force
- Best time
- May to September
The city
On the Indus, below the Karakoram.
Skardu spreads across a wide valley floor beside the Indus. Climbers come through on their way to K2 and the other eight-thousanders of the Karakoram, by road to Askole or Hushe. Above it, on Khardrong hill, stand the walls of Kharpocho Fort, built by the Maqpon rulers.
Go between May and September. Summer afternoons reach about 30 °C in the dry, thin air, and barely 10 mm of rain falls in a month. Winter is long and cold, with highs of 3 °C in January.
- Kharpocho Fort The Maqpon fort on Khardrong hill, with views over the town and the Indus.
- Lower Kachura Lake Home of Shangrila Resort, opened in 1983, whose restaurant sits inside the fuselage of a DC-3 that crash-landed in 1953 with everyone on board unhurt.
- Shigar An hour's drive north, a valley with a 400-year-old fort and the seventeenth-century palace of its Rajas.
Arriving
Long runways at 2,225 metres.
Skardu International, about 9 km from the centre, has two runways over 3,600 metres long at an elevation of 2,225 metres. It became an international airport again in December 2021 and shares the field with a Pakistan Air Force base.
- Tashkent 1 h 30
- Almaty 1 h 30
- Taipei 6 h 05
- Nice 7 h 45 long-range jet
- Marrakech 10 h 00 long-range jet
When to go
May to September.
A high, dry valley with hot summer days and hard winters. Afternoons climb from 23 °C in May to about 32 °C in July, and rain hardly ever passes 10 mm a month from June to October. From December to February daytime highs stay in single figures.
- 3° J 28
- 6° F 26
- 12° M 37
- 19° A 31
- 23° M 25
- 29° J 9
- 32° J 10
- 31° A 12
- 27° S 9
- 20° O 7
- 13° N 6
- 7° D 16
Where to stay
By the airport, facing the mountains.
Shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these hotels.
Flying to Skardu?
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