Baltit Fort, near the town of Karimabad about 2 kilometres north of Ganish, was the seat of the Mirs of Hunza for centuries. The fort's silhouette — a multi-storey tower with projecting wooden galleries against a backdrop of glaciated peaks — is the defining image of the Hunza Valley. It was restored in the 1990s with support from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and is now the region's premier heritage attraction.
Inside, the rooms have been carefully restored and furnished to give a sense of how the ruling family lived. The throne room, the women's quarters, and the dark prison cells at the base of the tower are all included in the guided tour. From the roof, the panorama takes in Rakaposhi (7,788m) to the south and the Ultar Glacier directly above Karimabad — one of the more accessible views of a peak this high anywhere on earth.