Karakoram I

In the world’s register of adventurous road trips, Pamir and Karakoram are familiar names at the top of any list. As it occurred to me, there seemed no better plan than to tackle both, in succession. The first leg of the Karakoram Highway was conveniently seamless with (my version of) the Pamir Highway, which terminated in Kashgar, China. Driving southwest from Kashgar delivered more wild Xīnjiāng landscapes: parabolic alpine valleys, shaggy Bactrian camels, and icy summits splayed into tantalizing panoramas. (I’m beginning to feel jaded, if not snobbish, in light of such remarkable, unrelenting scenery, of late).

After a night in Tashkurgan, the final Chinese outpost on the trajectory to Pakistan, I piled into a minivan with three Pakistanis and their profuse assemblage of Chinese merchandise. Khunjerab Pass is decidedly the loneliest border post I’ve ever visited – after clearing Chinese immigration in Tashkurgan, we drove two hours by military escort to the actual border, and another three hours beyond to Sost, where Pakistani immigration procedures were conducted, for a total of five hours in no man’s land.

Immediately after taking Khunjerab Pass (4,800 meters) and leaving China behind, we spiraled into the constricting gorge of the Karakoram; ourselves steadily descending, its governing peaks precipitously rising skyward. Within Khunjerab National Park, we spotted several herds of Himalayan Ibex, each of several dozen individuals, including stately bucks with meter-long, arcing racks. To watch these creatures sail up such impossibly steep, crumbling slopes, with equal measure of strength and finesse, was a sight I’ll not soon forget. Meanwhile, my Pakistani co-passengers employed a vigorous habit of discarding various articles out the window (music cassettes, cardboard boxes, plastic bags, water bottles, etc.), allegedly undeterred by (yet) unspoiled surroundings.