Pakistan

Three weeks on the Karakorum Highway

If you've come to Pakistan with an interest in snowy peaks, granite valleys, and excellent mustaches, you'd struggle to find a better location than the Karakorum Highway.

Its paved surface stretches 800km from the Chinese border in the very North of Pakistan down as far as Islamabad, taking a combination of motorbikes, cars, rainbow coloured lorries, and the occasional cyclist through the Hindu Kush, Himalaya, and Karakorum mountain ranges.

Arriving in November, we were fortunate that snow had not closed the very top of the Khunjerab pass in the very north of the country, yet with temperatures still well below zero there wasn't much debate about hanging around. After some handshakes, tyre squeezes, and selfies with a gaggle of Japanese tourists we quickly started our descent, quickly losing 1500m of elevation over the following nail-biting 7km.

While the weather was on the cool side the KKH has no shortage of infrastructure, and with the exception of one frosty night camped by a ranger's hut, it never took long to locate a guesthouse and a hot meal or three.

The paved road surface also made for a refreshing change from Tajikistan's Pamir region, allowing you to look up and appreciate the scenery as opposed to being preoccupied with keeping all of your teeth in your head.

Big mountains on the route are in no short supply and the Karakorum range contains eighteen summits higher than 7,500m, four of which are above 8000m, and the road also features multiple glaciers made accessible by webs of extension bridges.

Descending back beneath the vegetation line the Karakorum reveals one if it's many gems - the Hunza Valley. With the road shouldering the turquoise Hunza River amidst a medley of gold and brown poplar trees you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd arrived in British Columbia, and Hunza's autumnal displays burned a dried apricot sized hole in our memories for a long time afterwards.

Hiking opportunities are plentiful too and some of the most popular and accessible options include a hike to both Rakaposhi (7,788m) and Nangar Parbat (8,126m) base camps. The latter begins at Fairy Meadows, a lush, green plateau that sits at 3,300m, providing welcome relief to visitors who had just survived the jeep ride to get there via the aptly named 'Road of Death'.

The track up the valley is an insurance-busting combination of an unpaved and unmaintained gravel track, and with the majority of the 16km road no wider than the 1970's Land Rover you're riding in you don't need a vivid imagination to picture the consequences of a slide down the vertical cliff face.

By the second week of riding the snowy peaks had tapered off yet there was no shortage of colourful trucks to share the road with. Pakistan has a long history of truck art, and each one is hand-painted and unique, providing either a spectacle for your eyeballs or a near death experience depending on how responsive your brakes are.