Tourism Department Government of Gilgit Baltistan and EvK2CNR, first time, organized the Ski Traversing Event in Deosai, a national park and second highest plateau in the world in March 2021. It aimed at the promotion of winter tourism in Gilgit Baltistan with a focus on winter sports such as ski traversing.

Gilgit Baltistan lures hundreds of thousands of tourists from Pakistan and around the world in summers, however it has tremendous potential for winters to attract tourists interested to see the snow-covered mountains, frozen lakes, huge slabs of ice, cultural diversity and livelihood of mountain people in extremely cold weather etc. It also has variety of winter sports to offer to the tourists such as skiing, ice hocky and now together with EvK2CNR, Gilgit Baltistan has introduced Ski Touring. 

Six experts from Italy including Mr. Maurizio Gallo, Mr. Michele Cucchi, Paolo Dalla Valentina, Samuel Paulo Confortola, Marco Zaninetti and Matteo Negra cruised through the spectacular Deosai while ski traversing starting on March 16 from Chilum Astore and ended in Sadpara, Skardu on March 20^th, 2021. The government of Gilgit Baltistan celebrated this event with height of zeal being the first ever event of ski touring in the history of Gilgit Baltistan. The grand event was held in Skardu on March 21^st where the Chief Minister Gilgit Baltistan, Mr. Khalid Khurshid Khan was the Chief Guest. Mr. Agostino Da Polenza, President of EvK2CNR was honored with the title of “Goodwill Ambassador of Tourism and Adventure Sports” from Government of Gilgit Baltistan that was declared by the Chief Minister Gilgit Baltistan among thousands of spectators.

Earlier, Tourism Department, Government of GB and EvK2CNR jointly organized Ski Master Trainers’ Training that held in Naltar. Trainees from different valleys of Gilgit Baltistan (10 participants), Rescue 1122 (06 participants) and Pakistan Air Force (06 Participants), total 22 attendees participated in 4-days training course. The training paid attention to avalanche rescue and also the rescue during ski incidents. It on March 10, and culminated on March 14, 2021 with the closing ceremony at Karakoram International (KIU) University Gilgit on March 15, 2021. Vice Chancellor KIU, Minister Tourism and Secretary Tourism Gilgit Baltistan were among the guests

The purpose of the training courses was to promote winter tourism in Gilgit Baltistan through the sports such as skiing and imparting skills to potential youth and institutions to cope with any incidents and emergencies trained by the world-renowned trainers from Italy.