Fairy Meadows

Fairy Meadows Road is a spectacular and dangerous high mountain track with a length of 16,2km, located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The gravel road is completely unmaintained, there are no guardrails to protect you, and it gets so narrow that near the end you’ll have to cover the last section by walking or biking. Drivers must remain cautious as the pass has been known to claim the lives of careless drivers.

The dangerous Fairy Meadows Road

This trail, one of the most dangerous in the world, starts from the infamous Karakoram Highway and ends at the village of Tato, near Fairy Meadows, a picturesque destination at an altitude of about 3,300 meters above the sea level. Getting to Fairy Meadows is a huge risk that prevents many from enjoying the view. The most dangerous part of the road involves a narrow 6-mile ascend on an unpaved and uneven road. There are no barriers to prevent a vehicle from falling off the cliff to a fiery death. The road is no wider than a standard Jeep Wrangler and there’s plenty of through traffic. One false move and it’s a very long drop.
The gravel road has not undergone any repair since it was built by the ethnic villagers of the Nanga Parbat Mountain hundreds of years ago which makes it one of the dangerous roads on this list. The road was built by the local people, and is therefore a private toll road. It’s steep and just the width of the jeep, with unstable gravel road hacked out of the barren hills.

The six-month tourist season at Fairy Meadows starts in April and continues until the end of September. Tourists lodge at the camping site spread over 800 hectares (2,000 acres), known as “Raikot Serai”. The site of Fairy Meadows, though partially developed, generates about PKR 17 million revenue from tourism, mainly by providing food, transportation and accommodation services. The road to Fairy Meadows was built by Brigadier M. Aslam Khan (M.C, H.J, F.K), First Commander Gilgit Scouts, which today employs the locals. The local community stopped the extraction of timber to conserve the forest and promote tourism in the area. The main attraction of this place other than the meadows itself is the view of Nanga Parbat Mountain. Tourists usually hike to the base camp of the mountain from Fairy Meadows

The grassland is surrounded by thick alpine forest.The high altitude area and north-facing slopes mostly consist of coniferous forest having Pinus wallichiana, Picea smithiana and Abies pindrow trees, while in the high altitude areas with little sunlight are birch and willow dwarf shrubs. The southern slopes are concentrated with juniper and scrubs, namely Juniperus excelsa and J. turkesticana. In the low altitudes, the major plant found is Artemisia, with yellow ash, stone oaks and Pinus gerardiana spread among it.Research has suggested similarities between Pinus wallichiana found in the meadows with a sister species, Pinus peuce, found in the Balkans, based on leaf size.

Among mammals, a few brown bears are found in the region, with their numbers declining. Some musk deer, regarded as an endangered species, are also present.