Base camp for K2 — Baltistan's turquoise lakes, Deosai plateau, and the world's second-highest mountain at close range
Skardu is the capital of the Baltistan division of Gilgit-Baltistan and the base for expeditions to K2 (8,611m, the world's second-highest and technically hardest mountain) and the Karakoram giants. The city sits at 2,228m on the Indus River where it broadens into a wide alluvial plain flanked by red granite walls. The Upper and Lower Kachura Lakes (blue-green glacial water against sand dunes and pine forest) are among Pakistan's most photographed landscapes. Skardu is the gateway to Deosai National Park — the world's second-highest plateau.
Baltistan was an independent kingdom ruled by the Ali Sher Khan Anchan dynasty for centuries before the Dogra conquest of 1840. The Baltis are a Shia Muslim people who speak Balti, a Tibetan dialect that preserves features of Classical Tibetan lost in Tibet itself — making Baltistan a linguistic archive of early Buddhist Tibetan culture. The 1954 Italian K2 expedition under Ardito Desio (first ascent, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli) was organized from Skardu, as was every subsequent K2 expedition.