Deosai National Park: The Land of the Giant, Its Bears and Its Seasons

What Is Deosai National Park?

Deosai National Park is a protected high-altitude plateau between Skardu and Astore in Gilgit-Baltistan, created in 1993 to save the Himalayan brown bear.

Deosai lies east of Nanga Parbat in the western Himalayas, close to the central Karakoram, and is ringed by the Deosai Mountains.

The plains average about 4,114 metres above sea level.

Scholars and Pakistani sources describe it as the second highest plateau on Earth, behind the Tibetan Changtang.

The ground is open and treeless. Rolling grassland is cut by small streams and scattered lakes.

On the slopes the soil is coarse, stony and badly eroded, while the flat basins between the mountains hold deeper, marshy ground.

The park is managed as a wilderness area (IUCN Category Ib), and Pakistan has placed it on its tentative list for World Heritage status.

Deosai National Park Facts at a Glance

Deosai sits at about 4,114 metres, was protected in 1993, and is snowbound for roughly seven months of the year.

Why Deosai Is Called the Land of the Giant

Deosai comes from the Shina words deo (giant) and sai (shadow), and Balti speakers call the plateau Ghbiarsa, meaning “summer’s place”.

The name points to an old legend of a giant who lived on the plateau.

Put the two Shina words together and you get “shadow of the giant” or “land of the giant”.

The English phrase “Land of the Giant” was coined in the early 1990s by the travel writer Salman Rashid.

Brochures often make it plural, but the original legend uses a single giant.

Balti speakers have a more practical name. They call the plateau Ghbiarsa, “summer’s place”, because the road only opens in summer.

Even the lakes carry names with a story. Sheosar, at the western end of the park, means “blind lake” in Shina.

On a clear day Nanga Parbat can be seen from its shore.

Rashid later told the wider story in Deosai: Land of the Giant, with photographs by Nadeem Khawar.

The publisher says it draws on nearly a quarter century of visits to the plateau.

The Himalayan Brown Bear Comeback

Bear numbers in Deosai rose from 19 in 1993 to 78 in 2022, a rare conservation recovery that began with an honest count.

The park exists because of the bear.

When Deosai was declared a national park in 1993, the Himalayan Wildlife Project (later the Himalayan Wildlife Foundation) set up a research camp on the plateau.

Its investigators found just 19 bears, far fewer than the official wildlife department had claimed.

That hard number changed the work.

The foundation ran two entry check posts and the research camp for about ten years, with a team of around 20 wildlife guards.

Management then passed to the Northern Areas Forest Department, which has run the park since 2006.

The threats have shifted. Hunting and poaching have eased since the 1990s.

Reports from 2022 point instead to climate change and nutritional deficiencies in bears, while an earlier account named tourist numbers and grazing as pressures.

The bear is still treated as critically endangered in Pakistan.

Do not expect a sighting. Travel writers agree that bears are rare and shy, and they advise visitors to stay near the main camps.

The science behind the recovery is public, including a doctoral thesis on the bear’s ecology and genetics, linked in the references below.

Other Wildlife and Birds in Deosai

Besides the bear, Deosai is listed as home to Siberian ibex, snow leopard, Kashmir musk deer, Himalayan wolf, Himalayan marmot, and more than 124 bird species.

Few of these animals are easy to see.

The marmots are the exception, popping up near their burrows across the plains, and birds of prey ride the thermals over the ridges.

Birds of Deosai

Recorded species include the golden eagle, lammergeier, Himalayan vulture, laggar falcon, peregrine falcon, Eurasian kestrel, Eurasian sparrowhawk, and Himalayan snowcock.

Bring binoculars. Raptors are far easier to spot than mammals here.

The Marmot and the Gold-Digging Ants

The Himalayan marmot has one of the oddest stories on the plateau.

The French ethnologist Michel Peissel argued that the “gold-digging ants” reported by the Greek historian Herodotus were really Deosai’s golden marmots.

He claimed local people collected gold dust thrown up from the burrows, an idea he set out in his 1984 book The Ants’ Gold.

It remains Peissel’s claim, not settled fact, but it is a good story to carry across the plains.

Wildflowers and Plants of the Deosai Plains

After the snow melts, the plains fill with wildflowers and butterflies, and many of the plants double as traditional medicine.

In spring and early summer, sweeps of wildflowers cover the plateau, and butterflies follow.

Plants recorded here include Polygonum affine, Thalictrum alpinum, Aster flaccidus and Dracocephalum nutans.

People nearby also know the plateau as a medicine cabinet.

A 2021 study of Balti and Shina communities around the park documented locally famous plants such as kuth (Saussurea lappa), Ephedra gerardiana, and a thyme called Reetumburuk, all used in traditional remedies.

Seasons: When Deosai National Park Is Open

Deosai is snowbound from about November to May, and most visitors come between June and early September.

This is a summer place. For roughly seven months the plateau lies under snow and access is cut off.

Most visitors arrive between June and early September, when the snow has retreated and the grass is green.

That short window is when the streams run, the marshy basins fill, and herds spread across the meadows.

Conditions change from year to year, so check with a local operator before you plan dates.

The People Who Use Deosai

Deosai is also a seasonal pasture: Gujjar-Bakarwal herders travel long distances to graze it, and Galtari villagers use the plateau as a route.

For all its national park status, the plains are a working landscape.

Gujjar-Bakarwal herders travel long distances each summer to graze their animals, and people from Galtari cross Deosai on their way between valleys.

Rashid and Khawar’s book follows exactly this seasonal traverse of cattle and herders, along with the hamlets on the plateau’s lower edges.

It is a useful reminder that conservation here involves people as much as bears, since grazing has been named as a pressure on the bear’s habitat.

Visiting Deosai National Park Responsibly

Treat Deosai as a high, remote wilderness: acclimatise first, keep your distance from wildlife, and take everything you bring back out.

The shortest way in is from Skardu, where the plains begin roughly 30 km from the city.

Other routes run from Astore via Chilim, from the Shila valley, along the Mehdiabad-Dapa road, and over Burgy La.

Travel writers describe three common campgrounds: Bara Pani, Kala Pani and Sheosar Lake.

Treat the animals as you would any wildlife. Keep your distance, store food securely, and follow the advice of park staff.

Travel writers report bears around Sheosar and advise staying at the main camps. Carry out all your rubbish.

For permits, costs and how to reach the plains, see our Deosai National Park guide.

Book References for Deosai National Park

The facts above draw on published books, research and reports, and each title below links to a page where you can read more.

• Deosai: Land of the Giant by Salman Rashid, photographs by Nadeem Khawar, Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore, 2013. History, wildlife and bear conservation. See also The Friday Times review.
• The Ants’ Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas by Michel Peissel, Collins, 1984 (topic page). Source of the marmot and gold-dust claim.
• Climate Change Impacts on High-Altitude Ecosystems by Münir Öztürk and others, Springer, 2015. Source for the plateau’s average elevation.
• Ecology, genetics and conservation of Himalayan brown bear by Muhammad Ali Nawaz, doctoral thesis (PDF).
• Comparative Assessment of Medicinal Plant Utilization among Balti and Shina Communities in the Periphery of Deosai National Park by Zaheer Abbas and others, Biology, 2021.

For official and background reading, see UNESCO’s tentative list entry, the UNDP page on brown bear conservation, Dawn’s Deosai travel feature, and Deosai National Park on Wikipedia.

Plan Your Visit to Deosai National Park

Go to Deosai National Park in summer, take your time at altitude, and keep your expectations for bears modest.

Deosai National Park rewards patience.

Give yourself time to adjust to the height, watch the marmots and the birds of prey, and let the wildflowers and open skies do the rest.

A bear sighting would be a gift, but the plains are worth the trip without one.