THE DEOSAI PLATEAU
For me, the highlight of the trip was the Deosai Plateau (aka Bhear Star "place of flowers" in Balti.) The plains are an average height of 14,500 ft., so it is pretty sparse but we were told that there are terrific wildflowers in the summer although when we were there, the flower season was mostly past.

SATPARA LAKE
To get to the Deosai from Skardu you go past Satpara Lake, a worthy destination in itself.  There is a nice looking PTDC hotel being built right above the lake which, reportedly, has good fishing.

We passed by fairly early in the morning and the reflection in the lake was almost like a mirror.

I have never figured out how to take a photograph that accurately shows how scary a road is. This stretch even made the Jeep driver visibly nervous. The drop-off was hundreds of feet and the road was made mostly rock and gravel without any supporting concrete or guardrails.

At the center of the Deosai is the wildlife preserve for the Asian Brown Bear of which just over 25 still exist there. Needless to say, we didn't see one although we saw lots of Golden Marmots which are beautiful and quite a bit larger than the marmots I've seen in North America.

BARA PANI
Near the center of the Deosai is Bara Pani, our destination for this trip. All over Pakistan we saw this poster of a Jeep crossing this very rickety bridge. I was so delighted to see that very bridge still being crossed although it didn't seem improved at all.  Our driver offered to take us across but we declined his kind offer.