I didn’t follow the route of the Karakoram Highway strictly; in fact, I skipped most of it from Islamabad to Chilas completely. There are several alternative routes there which frankly looked better. This is taken from the road up through the Ghalis, a chain of hill stations near Islamabad. I started out climbing the Margalla Hills, then wound through a hidden river valley to Murree and from there up to this area.

The trip through the Ghalis took about three days. After that, I descended to Abbottabad and Mansehra, then turned up into the Kaghan Valley. At the bottom, where I took this photo, this was lush and green. This area is quite popular with local tourists.

Near the top it grew much more rocked and ruggy. The people in this area also grew more rugged and wild, and we saw shepherds running over the hills carrying assault rifles. The paved road had ended long before this point, and traffic was limited to a couple vehicles per day, not including trekkers and cyclists.

This alpine lake appeared very near the top of the valley, the Babusar Pass. The valley continued rising much farther into the Himalaya, and it would have been interesting to follow it to the very end - which I think was still in Pakistani control!

The road over the Babusar Pass was very rough and rocky, but manageable. Here I am at the summit, over 4000 m up. The road down was one of the worst, rockiest trails I have ever seen. At one point it was nothing but a stream bed (complete with flowing water).

On the other side of the Babusar Pass was the Indus Valley. Where the Kaghan Valley had been green and cool, this was rocky and very, very hot. Here we were on the main branch of the Karakoram Highway again and, naturally, there was more traffic. This lorry was typical. The deep shadows were also typical; the mountain walls around us were about 6000 m high at this point and the resulting contrasts were quite hard to accommodate with slide film.

What would you think if you saw a sign by the side of the road that said “Ambush site - 200 m”? I ran into this one about thirty kilometres east of Gilgit. It intrigued me enough that I stopped for a few minutes to puzzle it over. It turned out to be a historical marker to a famous battle.

Just outside of Gilgit, going north towards Hunza, the road passes through this bridge. On the right side, it enters a tunnel immediately. Inside the rock it turns 90 degrees, before opening out onto a road carved from the cliffside.

The valley of Hunza is the most popular area on the KKH to visit. Small villages stretch thousands of metres up from the Indus Valley to where I took this picture (and farther up still). In the background is Rakaposhi, a peak of around 8000 m altitude. Visible in the picture are numerous small towns. Just below the podium-like rock formation is Karimabad, with Baltit Fort sticking up relatively clearly.

The Indus Valley route is an old pilgrim trail, along which Buddhism spread from India to Central Asia and China. On rocks there, one finds ancient graffitti like this, some of which is a couple thousand years old. The carvings vary. Some are pictures (prayer wheels, sheep and prayer towers are favorites) and some are inscriptions in old scripts like Sogdian. (I’ve adjusted the brightness and contrast in this picture to make the characters stand out more clearly).

North of Hunza the road winds higher into the mountains towards the Khunjerab Pass. This glacier is in Passu, the last sizeable town before the border and as far north as I went. Traffic here averaged a few vehicles every day. The valley walls were so steep it was difficult to get enough sun for a picture of the town itself, but the mountain areas turned out just fine.