Karakoram Highway: Passu to Tashkurgan

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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 is where the day begins. Next is Khunjerab Pass.

2. 2. 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

   Khunjerab Pass comes up about 122 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Tashkurgan, mostly downhill.

3. 3. Tashkurgan

   Tashkurgan is a small town in the far west of China's Xinjiang region, high on a plateau among the Pamirs at roughly three thousand metres. After crossing the Khunjerab Pass, at about 4,700 metres one of the highest paved border crossings in the world, it is the first real place you reach on the Chinese side. For anyone coming up the Karakoram Highway from Pakistan, it feels like arriving at the end of the earth and the beginning of a new one.

   Read the complete Tashkurgan 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 247 km.