Pakistan Karakoram

Balti boy in Askoli

Piaiju peak profiled at sunset

approaching the Trango series and Cathedrals

legendary Baltoro shoes

Goro I campsite near Masherbrum (K1)

our runaway horse at Concordia

Broad Peak from Concordia

 

the elusive Gasherbrum IV

Concordia village life

the mighty K2 at dusk... a sight to behold

Baltoro candy

the Deosai high plateau

 

 

Karakoram traffic jam

Karakoram V

The Passu Crisis

Back in the upstream sanctuary of Passu, I acquainted myself with the local state of affairs, which became increasingly clear as being dire. What first baffled me was the inactivity – empty fields, no livestock, abandoned hotels, unemployed locals. Having just visited vibrant Pamiri villages in Tajikistan, nearly identical in their culture, landscape, climate, and resources, I struggled to reconcile this idleness.

What I discovered was a failed economic shift from subsistence to diversification. In the early 1980's, with the newly completed Karakoram Highway, tourism thrived in the Northern Areas, accompanied by unprecedented access to China and the rest of Pakistan. Locals opened guest houses, became trekking guides, and farmers began to plant cash crops like potatoes, electing to import their wheat, vegetables, and meat from Punjab. For a time, this transition delivered positive changes.

Following 9/11, tourism in Pakistan cratered, forcing much of the tourism industry to pursue alternatives. Seemingly half the locals I've met allude to their former occupations as tourist guides. The second blow came with the Hunza landslide in 2010, which has severed vehicular access to the upper Karakoram. This year's planting season has passed; tourism has all but ceased; there's no mutton, no wheat, no produce, and no petrol; government support has proven inept – the local economy has completely collapsed. Will Passu's current plight inspire lasting changes (e.g. a reversion to subsistence), or simply a perpetual struggle with isolation and embitterment?

A peripheral local industry is the maintenance of the Karakoram Highway, the responsibility for which primarily rests upon the Chinese, who befit the task considering their substantial investment in its original construction. Two years ago, the upper Karakoram boasted tarmac, but the Chinese are beginning anew, with visions of an expressway, and endeavor to reclaim the highway's rank as the world's 8th wonder. As at home, they approach their work with a dogged allegiance, and are culturally and economically insoluble with the local Pakistanis. The Chinese camps import their provisions (i.e. rice, noodles, wine, cigarettes, pornography), and export their earnings. But Pakistan's margin for grievance is limited since they lack the engineering expertise to tackle such an ambitious feat as the Karakoram. And for China, the motive is clear: to pave their way to the Arabian Sea.

Karakoram IV

Gilgit is a transition town where the religions, cultures, and rivers of Pakistan's Northern Areas converge. Sunni-Shiite sectarian tensions are taut here, and frequently ignite violent uprisings. The discrete jamaat khanas of the northern Ismailis are overshadowed by conventional mosques, and Muslims converging to the muezzin's call for prayer. Police and military convoys parade the streets, along with political demonstrations, qualified with the occasional DOWN WITH U.S.A. graffiti art. Despite its froth, Gilgit is an accommodating town with a well-stocked bazaar, whose roots draw from every corner of Pakistan.

Without deferral, I bade Gilgit adieu and pointed back north, hoping to clear the landslide again by helicopter. Locals contend that the dam's bursting is imminent, considering the fate of two similar events in Hunza Valley in prior times. Some 30 villages downstream have been evacuated, schools closed indefinitely to accommodate refugees, and Army helicopters are busy shuttling supplies. Although the Pakistani government declined assistance from China, understandably, many locals declare their relief effort as being insufficient and overdue, particularly those living upstream.

Hunza locals receive emergency first aid from the Pakistan Red Crescent

Regarding safety in northern Pakistan, I shall relate my impressions. To be sure, Pakistan is not a place where the blemishes of American foreign policy are glazed over. Many Pakistanis perceive America to have waged war on the Muslim world, whose activities have inflamed terrorism and insecurity in Pakistan. Furthermore, American drone operations in western Pakistan, along with their civilian collateral, are probably indistinguishable from terrorism to those affected. But hospitality is an overriding feature of the Pakistani moral constitution, unwavering even for an American recipient. In short, the Americans are not well-regarded in Pakistan, but hospitality trumps politics, at least in the north.

Friendly graffiti in northern Pakistan ("Long live Benazir")

Karakoram III

The backdrop of my timely visit to the Karakoram Highway involves a major landslide triggered earlier this year, which welded a complete blockage of the Hunza River gorge. Since then, a reservoir of water has gradually accumulated behind the natural dam, submerging villages along with the Karakoram Highway itself. As it stands now, the Karakoram is indefinitely closed to thru traffic. Until a few days ago, the government was operating a boat shuttle across the lake, now spanning seven miles; but with the water level at imminent risk of breaching the crest of the dam, the boat service has been canceled, replaced by an air service for the purpose of evacuating local villages.



Today I lucked out and hitched a ride with a Pakistani Army cargo helicopter, making for a thrilling ride through the disaster zone of the lake and the surrounding Karakoram scenery. Shortly thereafter, I arrived by minibus in the hub town of Gilgit, for the purpose of buying a pashmina shawl and gorging on yogurt. Now the only trick will be getting back up the valley by helicopter before the dam bursts, and ultimately making my way back to China.

Karakoram II

Prior to coming to Pakistan, I gathered intelligence on the security situation from a variety of sources, including travelers and government officials from the U.S., China, and Pakistan. The story was consistent: north of Gilgit is calm, south of Gilgit is a roll of the dice. But in a country experiencing regional warfare and, generally, on the brink of state failure, all roads lead to uncertainty. Entering Pakistan as an independent traveler lacking any form of sponsorship, this was a reality of which I was acutely aware.



My first afternoon in Pakistan, in the northernmost town of Sost, the number of occasions in which I was expressly cautioned against revealing my nationality was disconcerting. These warnings were consistently corroborated by disconsolate reactions in locals who queried my nationality. It was a chilling theme. But I rationalized these observations, perhaps optimistically, as a function of systemic views of America among Pakistanis, with the corollary that, at least in the Northern Areas, popular hatred of America is rather benign.

Pakistanis north of Gilgit are by majority Tajik Ismaili Muslims, also known as the “modern Muslims”. Spiritually led by their progressive Aga Khan in Switzerland, Ismailis embrace globalism, technology, education, and women’s rights. In Tajikistan, northern Afghanistan, and northern Pakistan, the Ismailis have effectively resisted Islamic extremism, which generally accounts for the stability in these areas.

To what extent the peaceful nature of Ismaili Muslims collides with their Pakistani national identity, in a place deeply resentful of America, was at the forefront of my interests. In one conversation, a Pakistani man explained to me that the killing of innocent civilians by suicide bombers in Pakistan is only proximately attributed to the Taliban, and ultimately attributed to their government’s cooperation with the United States, for which terrorism is simply a retribution.

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.