CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
280 km from Chilas to the finish, about 3 h 33 of riding. It goes by way of Gilgit and Hunza Karimabad. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,550 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 48 km this is Karakoram Highway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chilas is where the day begins. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gilgit comes up about 135 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 232 km into the recorded legs you reach Hunza Karimabad. Next is Passu.
Passu is a village at the foot of an immense rock wall, and the wall has a face that people photograph more than their own families. The jagged spires of the Passu Cones, also called Tupopdan, a ridge of dark granite and ice reaching about 6,100 metres, rise straight above the fields and the road in the upper Hunza valley, in a district called Gojal. A short distance away, the Passu Glacier flows down toward the river, its dirty grey tongue easy to reach on foot, and the glacier is a good example of how quickly the ice here moves and changes. In front of it, the valley floor is a patchwork of barley, potatoes and apricots in tiny stone-walled fields.
Read the complete Passu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Passu closes the day.
Chilas → Gilgit is 135 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Gilgit → Hunza Karimabad is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Hunza Karimabad → Passu is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.