GILGIT: After remaining closed for six months owing to heavy snowfall, the Babusar Pass has been reopened to traffic.

An official of the Diamer district administration told Dawn on Wednesday that the pass had been cleared for light traffic on Monday. He urged the motorists to drive carefully through the pass as fear of snow avalanches was always there.

The Babusar Pass, which connects Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan with the Mansehra district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through Naran and Kaghan valleys, remains closed from October to June.

Foreign and local tourists going to GB prefer to travel through the pass to enjoy the cool weather, and also it takes less time.

The journey from Diamer to Mansehra takes seven hours through the pass, while the same distance is covered in 14 hours on the Karakoram Highway.

It is expected that reopening of the pass would attract large number of tourists to GB.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2018