An expedition to Fairy Meadows - Part 1

Being the curious person I am, I love to travel and explore the world at all times. During the Autumn season in Pakistan, I spontaneously planned a trip to the Fairy Meadows. Fairy Meadows in Pakistan have been rated as one of the top 10 dangerous roads and treks in the world. We booked an economical tour with one of the local tour and travel organizers called Paramount Adventures. I flew from Karachi, my home city, to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and started my journey from there to Fairy Meadows in a a very spacious, comfortable coaster. It took us about 18 long hours to reach our destination, Chilas a city closest to Fairy Meadows, Gilgit-Baltistan. Chillas is a very dry, hot about 45 degrees Celsius, barren city, with high barren, sand mountains and a large river flowing through the roads.

We made a quick stop at the Shangrilla resort in Chilas, where we got equipped with our trekking equipment and stocked water and fresh juice for hydration. There were about 20 more people on this journey besides me and most of us were going trekking for the first time. There were 4 foreigners, travelling from Europe, in this group too who joined us from Shangrilla Resort to go trekking on Fairy Meadows. We were made into groups of 5 and were allocated to sit in open 4 wheeler jeeps that are mostly used by the locals there to take the travelers up on the mountains, where they drop us to a certain point, after which the roads are not constructed or a broken from the sides due to rock sliding, so that's where the trekking up to the Fairy Meadows actually begin. Once we were dropped off to start the trek, our first obstacle that we all had to cross, was a walk on a thin wooden log kept over a fast flowing river. Once we crossed that, the real journey began.

It was really hot that day, almost hitting 50 degrees Celsius. The trek was a very steep, thin walk way and on our right side was the fast flowing Indus river. We had to trek more than 8000 feet above the sea level to reach our camps. After about 2 hours of long walk, it started to rain and then there was a thunderstorm. Most of us were wearing our usual sneakers and since the trek became slippery, we all slowed down. It was almost evening time around 5pm and we knew that the sun goes down around 6:45pm there, so we all had to make sure to reach to our camps within the next 1hr 30mins, otherwise it would become dark and there were no lights there and the broken roads would just surprise us at every turn. There came a time that we all got lost and the travel guides were either too behind or too ahead of us, so the group of 5 in which I was, we got lost and decided to take help from the locals there who would cross us after every 15mins. So each of us got onto a horse and then almost quickly reach to the camps, but in between there was broken road which we had to jump over to get to the top of the mountain - the Fairy Meadows. Going up on a horse was also not a very safe option since it too was slipping on the steep slope trek. As we reach the top, it started to rain even faster and there was only one light which was only enough to see the camps where we had to spend the night.

After drying up and having some dinner, we had a born fire and shared our trekking experience of the day. Later, we all went to sleep in our camps and the next morning around 6 am when we woke up, we saw the magnificent Nanga Parbat also known as the Killer Mountain, right in front of us.