Karakoram Highway: Hunza Karimabad to Khunjerab Pass

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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

   Hunza Karimabad is where the day begins. Next is Passu.

2. 2. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Passu comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Khunjerab Pass.

3. 3. Khunjerab Pass

   Khunjerab is the top of the road, and the road, in this case, is the Karakoram Highway. At 4,693 metres, the pass sits on the border between Pakistan and China and is the highest paved international crossing in the world. There is not much to see except a white arch, a barrier, a few border markers and an enormous sense of space. The surrounding hills are high, bare and rounded, covered in snow for most of the year, and the sky seems closer than anywhere else. The name itself comes from local words meaning something like the valley of blood, though the story behind it is disputed.

   Read the complete Khunjerab Pass 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 171 km. Nothing on this route is higher.