Nanga Parbat and Fairy Meadows

Nanga Parbat (8,126 M), Ninth Highest Mountain On Earth; Fairy Meadows Lies Below Its Raikot Face In Diamer District · Tato, Gilgit-Baltistan

Nanga Parbat, at 8,126 metres the ninth-highest mountain on earth, is the western anchor of the Himalaya and one of the most dramatic mountains anyone can reach without an expedition. It was called the Killer Mountain long before anyone climbed it, after the German attempts of the 1930s cost dozens of lives; Hermann Buhl finally reached the top alone in 1953. The way most people see it is Fairy Meadows, a pine-ringed alpine meadow at about 3,300 metres directly below the Raikot Face, where the ice wall fills the whole sky across the valley. Getting there is its own story: a famously narrow jeep track cut into a cliff above the Raikot gorge from the Karakoram Highway, then a walk of two hours or so uphill. Wooden huts and campsites sit in the meadow, and from there a day's walk leads to Beyal and the Raikot base camp. In 2013 militants killed eleven people at the Diamir base camp on the other side of the mountain; security has been tightened since, and Fairy Meadows is busy every summer.

Fairy Meadows, via Raikot Bridge on the Karakoram Highway, Diamer District, Tato, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

Seasonal. Fairy Meadows is open roughly May to October; the huts close and the jeep track is snowbound in winter. Jeeps run from Raikot Bridge on the Karakoram Highway to the road head at Tato or Jhel, operated by a local jeep union with fixed fares, and the rest is on foot, roughly two to three hours up. There is no ticket, but a local fee is sometimes collected. Raikot Bridge is a few hours by road from Gilgit and a long day from Islamabad over the Babusar Pass in summer. Hut bookings fill quickly in July and August.

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