Karakoram Highway (1944 km)
Islamabad to Tashkurgan · one way, about 1944 km back to the start
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Why this ride
From Islamabad it runs 1944 km to the finish; allow about 28 h 17 of riding. The stops in between: Abbottabad, Besham, Chilas and Gilgit. The highest point is about 4,700 m. It crosses from Pakistan into China - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Roadbook
- Islamabad
start
Islamabad is the start of one of the great roads of the world, the Karakoram Highway, which climbs from the plains of the Punjab through Hazara and the Indus gorge to the Khunjerab Pass on the Chinese border. The capital itself is a young city, planned in the 1960s by the Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis to replace Karachi, laid out on a grid of numbered sectors with wide avenues and trees, and tucked below the green wall of the Margalla Hills. Rawalpindi, the older garrison town next door, is far more crowded and loud, and the two together form one urban area.
The city has some places worth a stop before you leave. The Faisal Mosque, with its tent-like shape and four minarets, stands at the foot of the hills and is one of the largest mosques in the world, and a short climb up to Daman-e-Koh gives a view over the sectors to the plains. The hills hold leopards and monkeys, and the evening smell of woodsmoke and cooking drifts down from the villages. The Pakistan Monument, a petal-shaped structure on a hill, is a landmark.
Riding out is a lesson in patience at first. The traffic through Rawalpindi and the Grand Trunk Road is dense, with rickshaws, buses and trucks painted in elaborate colours, and you need to be alert and ride defensively. After Hasan Abdal, the highway begins to climb through Haripur toward Abbottabad and Mansehra, with greener hills, terraces and the first views of snow in the distance. Then the road descends to the Indus at Besham, and from there it is a dramatic gorge with cliffs and the river roaring below. Landslides and rockfalls can close sections, particularly after the monsoon rains of July and August, so check conditions before you go.
Fuel is plentiful in the capital and along the highway, but take care to fill up before the long mountain stretches and carry cash, as cards are not accepted in many places. Travellers should also check current advice and any permit or security requirements for the north, which can change. A cup of sweet milky tea at a roadside dhaba is the standard break, and the food, from grilled chicken to hot naan, is excellent.
- Abbottabad
scenic
Abbottabad sits in a cool green bowl of pine-covered hills at about 1,250 metres, and for a rider coming up from the plains the first thing you notice is the air. After the heat of Islamabad and the Punjab plains, it feels like stepping into a different country. The town was founded in the 1850s by James Abbott, a British officer who was struck by the climate and the beauty of the area, and it kept its colonial bones: a cantonment of broad avenues, old schools, and a military academy at nearby Kakul. Today it is a city of around a hundred thousand people in the Hazara region, with a bustling bazaar and a university.
Abbottabad gained a very different sort of fame in 2011, when the world's most wanted man was found in a compound on the edge of town. That story is not what most visitors come for, and locals can be weary of it. What they will tell you about instead is the climate, the schools and the surrounding hills, where summer visitors flock to Nathia Gali and Ayubia, a national park of forests and walking paths on the slopes above. The Thandiani ridge, on the north side, has views over to the Kashmir mountains on a clear day.
For the Karakoram Highway, Abbottabad is the real beginning. The road from Islamabad joins the old Silk Road route here, and climbs through the foothills toward Havelian, where the highway proper starts. From here you head north into increasingly dramatic country, with the Indus gorge to come. The road surface is generally good on this section, with gentle curves and heavy traffic of trucks, buses and rickshaws, so overtaking requires patience and good judgement.
Fuel and services are plentiful: there are petrol stations, mechanics, ATMs and decent restaurants, and the bazaar sells everything from dried fruit to spare parts. This is the place to fill up, eat and stock up on water before the mountain stages, because services get thinner farther north. The Hindko-speaking locals are friendly, and a rider on a foreign bike will draw a curious crowd.
Spring and autumn are the best seasons. Summers bring monsoon rain and landslides on the hill roads, while winter nights can be cold, and snow occasionally dusts the heights around town.
- Besham
scenic
Besham is a bazaar town clinging to the bank of the Indus, and it earns its place on the Karakoram Highway the way many towns on that road do: it is where everyone stops. The highway comes up from the lowlands through a deep gorge, the Indus running brown and fast beside it, and by the time you reach Besham the mountains are close and steep on both sides. The altitude is modest, but the sense of enclosure is complete. Locals will tell you that Besham is where the Himalayas really begin, and a rider arriving at midday with sore knees will agree.
The town sits at the junction for the road up to Swat, over the Shangla Pass, one of the old routes into the northern valleys. That makes it a crossroads for buses, trucks and Land Cruisers, and the bazaar is lively, with dhabas serving chicken karahi, daal and fresh naan, and tea stalls on every corner. A hot meal here is a good one. The population is mainly Pashtun and Kohistani, and the area has been a trade route for centuries, long before the Chinese helped build the highway in the 1960s and 70s, at the cost of many lives.
The road in and out is the real attraction. The Karakoram Highway between Besham and Thakot is cut into the rock face above the river, with sharp bends, narrow stretches and sheer drops. Landslides are common, especially in the monsoon, and the surface can be broken in places, so slow down, and ride in daylight. The reward is views of the Indus gorge that few roads in the world can match, with the river frothing over boulders far below and terraced fields climbing the slopes.
Fuel is available in Besham, as are basic hotels, mechanics and shops. Battagram, to the north-east, is larger. Fill up here, because the road beyond gets longer between pumps and the quality of fuel varies. The 2005 earthquake devastated this region, and the rebuilt towns show the scars, but local hospitality is warm.
Late spring and autumn are the best times to ride. Summer rain brings rockfalls and delays, and winter can close higher sections of the road. Check conditions locally, as the situation changes quickly.
- Chilas
scenic
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.
The town is also a trading and crossing point, and the hills around it are covered with petroglyphs. Thousands of carvings and inscriptions, in Sogdian, Kharoshthi, Brahmi and Chinese as well as other scripts, were left by travellers on the old Silk Road branch that ran through here, and many of them are Buddhist stupas, ibex and hunters pecked into dark rock faces by the river. The sites at Chilas and nearby Thalpan are the best known; many are being drowned or moved as dams rise upstream on the Indus.
For riders, Chilas is the gate to the Babusar Pass road, which climbs from the Indus up to the pass at about 4,170 metres and then drops into the green Kaghan valley toward Naran. The road is steep and in places rough, with hairpins, loose gravel, unfenced drops and sudden weather, and it is usually open only from early summer to autumn; snow can close it, and landslides can too. Check locally before you set out. The Karakoram Highway itself is a feat of engineering but is regularly cut by rockfalls and floods, and heavy trucks make the narrow sections slow.
Fuel is available in Chilas, which is the last reliable stop before the pass, and basic hotels and roadside restaurants serve lentils, chapati, grilled meat and strong sweet tea. Summer days are fierce, with temperatures over forty degrees in the gorge, while the pass above is cold even in July.
Start early, because afternoon wind and weather build, and give yourself time to drive the descent in daylight.
- Gilgit
scenic
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.
This was a key stop on the Silk Road branch that crossed the mountains between China, Kashmir and Central Asia, and the valley has been a Buddhist centre, a Hindu kingdom and a Muslim principality in turn. A Buddha carved into a rock face at Kargah, a few kilometres from town, dates to around the seventh century. In 1931 some of the oldest surviving manuscripts in the world were found near here, Buddhist texts written on birch bark and later known as the Gilgit manuscripts. In more recent times, the town was the capital of a frontier agency of the British Raj, and polo, the local passion, is still played with abandon in the high valleys.
Today Gilgit is the main hub of Gilgit-Baltistan, with a bustling bazaar, a few simple hotels, and the usual loud, cheerful traffic of a Pakistani town. For a rider, it is the main supply base for the Karakoram Highway, which was built by Pakistani and Chinese engineers from the late 1950s to 1978, at the cost of hundreds of workers' lives, and which snakes north along the Hunza valley toward Khunjerab. Here you can find fuel, spares, banks, and good food, from fresh apricots in summer to stews of lamb and local bread, with apricot oil and dried fruit sold in the shops.
The road north is paved but battered by rockfall, landslides and the movement of the mountains themselves, and sections can be closed after rain or snow. Expect sharp bends, dust, trucks and cliff edges. The best months are May to October, when the passes are open and the days warm, but nights can be cold. Security and road conditions can change, so check locally and ask about permits and any restrictions before setting out. Fill up and stock water here, because the next big town lies a good distance away.
- Hunza Karimabad
scenic
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.
Two forts stand above the village, Baltit and Altit, and they are the heart of its history. Baltit Fort, perched on a rock above the houses, is more than seven hundred years old in parts and was the seat of the Mir, the hereditary ruler of Hunza, until 1945. After restoration supported by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, it now houses a museum with carved wooden rooms and a fine view of the valley. Altit, a little lower and older, is the original royal fort. Most people of Hunza are Ismaili Muslims, followers of the Aga Khan, and literacy and education levels are notably high compared with much of the region. Tales of exceptional longevity among Hunza people are popular but not well supported, so treat them as a story.
The Karakoram Highway runs through the valley, a road built by Pakistan and China between 1966 and 1979 at a heavy cost in lives, and it rewards the rider with endless views. The surface is generally paved, but landslides, rockfalls and washed-out sections are common, particularly in summer and after rain, and many bends are tight and blind. In 2010 a huge landslide dammed the river upstream at Attabad, creating a long turquoise lake that submerged part of the road, and traffic has since been rerouted through new tunnels. Check the current state of the road before travelling.
Fuel is available in Karimabad and Aliabad nearby, and hotels and guesthouses are plentiful, with views from the rooftops. Local dishes include walnut cake and apricot soup. Travel conditions are best from late spring to early autumn, and snow can block the road in winter. Rise early to see the first light on Rakaposhi.
- Passu
scenic
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.
The most famous sight in the village is the Hussaini suspension bridge, a long and sagging footbridge of wooden planks and steel cables over the grey, fast river. It looks alarming, with large gaps between planks, and it is often described as one of the most dangerous bridges in the world, though local people use it with ease. Crossing is optional and at your own risk, and a section of a nearby bridge is in better condition. The mountains around the village hold many other peaks and glaciers, and trekking trails lead up to viewpoints and high pastures.
North of Passu the Karakoram Highway continues to Sost, the last town before the Chinese border, and then climbs to the Khunjerab Pass at about 4,700 metres, one of the highest paved border crossings in the world. The road here is demanding. It runs through narrow gorges and across gravel plains, with sections damaged by landslides, floods and glacial outwash, and the weather is cold and changeable. Altitude affects both rider and machine at the pass. The pass is open to travellers only at certain times and may require permits, so check conditions and rules well in advance.
Fuel is limited in this part of the valley, with the main supplies at Aliabad and Sost, so fill the tank when you can. Small guesthouses serve simple meals of bread, lentils and tea, and in the evening the temperature drops quickly. Autumn brings the best colour and clear air, though nights are cold.
- Khunjerab Pass
scenic · 4693 m
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.
The pass is open to traffic only for part of the year, usually from the spring until late autumn, when snow blocks it. Even in July, the temperature can drop below freezing at night, and the wind is cold and constant. Altitude is a real problem. Riders arriving quickly from lower levels may feel headaches, breathlessness and nausea, and a carburetted bike will run noticeably rough in the thin air. Take it slowly, drink a lot, and do not stay too long at the top if you feel unwell.
The area is protected as the Khunjerab National Park, one of the highest in the world, home to Marco Polo sheep, with their huge spiralling horns, as well as ibex, blue sheep, snow leopards and Himalayan marmots. Yaks graze the high pastures in summer, and on the road up you can see herders' stone huts. The long ride from Sost, the last Pakistani town and customs post, takes you through a stark, glaciated landscape, past peaks over six thousand metres and frozen streams.
Crossing into China is not possible for an independent rider without a lot of arrangement, usually requiring permits, a guide and specific paperwork, so for most, the pass is the end of the road. Sost has fuel, simple food and the immigration office, and you should fill up there. There is nothing at the top beyond a checkpoint and, occasionally, a small tea stall. Pack warm clothes, as the descent is long and chilly, and expect the road to be rough in places after the winter, with potholes and washed-out sections.
- Tashkurgan
finish
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.
The people here are mostly Tajik, an Iranian-speaking mountain people quite unlike the Han Chinese or the Uyghurs of the plains below, and the county is officially a Tajik autonomous one. The faces, the clothes, the singing and the drum dances all point toward Central Asia. Above the town stand the remains of an old stone fort, and the name itself is thought to mean stone fortress. For centuries this was a stop on the Silk Road, where caravans from Kashgar and from the passes to the south exchanged goods and news before the next stage of the trip.
The setting is wide and austere. The valley opens into broad pastures edged by bare brown mountains, with snow on the higher summits and wind that comes through in cold bursts. Yaks and camels graze along the road. Further north, toward Kashgar, the highway runs past the vast Karakul Lake and the huge, glaciated mass of Muztagh Ata, over 7,500 metres, a mountain that turns pink at dusk and appears to float above the water.
The road itself is generally good asphalt, wide and well engineered by Chinese crews, though high altitude, cold nights and landslides can interrupt travel. The border crossing is seasonal, typically closed through the deep winter, and crossing it with a foreign motorcycle involves official permission and arrangements that need to be made well ahead, so this is not a place to improvise.
Tashkurgan has the facilities of a border town: fuel, simple restaurants, guesthouses and a market. Altitude matters, so take it gently, drink water, and expect a headache the first night if you came up fast. The lamb noodles and fresh bread are good, and the tea is hot.