Karakoram Highway: Chilas to Hunza Karimabad

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Chilas

   Chilas is a hot, dry town on the upper Indus, where the Karakoram Highway runs through one of the most dramatic gorges on earth. Here three of the world's great mountain ranges, the Himalaya, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, meet within a few dozen kilometres, and the Indus carves a trench between them that is deeper than the Grand Canyon in places. The stony hillsides above the town are bare and brown, which makes the snowy bulk of Nanga Parbat, at 8,126 metres the ninth highest mountain in the world, seem even more unlikely when it appears over the ridge.

   Read the complete Chilas write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Chilas is where the day begins. Next is Gilgit.

2. 2. Gilgit

   Gilgit sits in the place where three of the world's greatest mountain systems come together: the Karakoram, the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush. The town lies at roughly fifteen hundred metres in a broad, dry valley at the meeting of the Gilgit and Hunza rivers, with bare brown ridges close on every side, and on a clear day the snow of high peaks hangs over the roofs. Nanga Parbat, the ninth-highest mountain on earth, lies not far south, and from the Hunza side the huge ridge of Rakaposhi appears on the horizon.

   Read the complete Gilgit write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Gilgit comes up about 135 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hunza Karimabad.

3. 3. Hunza Karimabad

   Karimabad is the main village of the Hunza valley, a green ribbon of terraced fields in the middle of some of the highest mountains in the world. The village sits on a hillside at about 2,500 metres in northern Pakistan, and from its terraces you look across to the great snow peaks of Rakaposhi, Ultar Sar and Lady Finger, rising to more than seven thousand metres. Apricot trees grow everywhere, and in spring their blossom fills the valley with white and pink, while in autumn the whole slope turns gold and red. The valley has long been a quiet world of its own.

   Read the complete Hunza Karimabad write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 232 km.