The Karakoram Highway

The Karakoram Highway, or KKH, one of the wonders of modern Pakista, twists between four great mountain ranges – the Himalayas, the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs. On the map the ranges resemble a giant squid, with its head in the Pamirs and its tentacles waving in long lines around it, but from the air the mountains are an almighty jumble. There are 70 peaks in Baltistan (Skardu) and Gilgit over 6,000 metres (20,000 ft), the best known being Nanga Parbat, K-2 and Rakaposhi.

These vast mountain ranges began to form some 80 to 100 million years ago when the Indian sub-continent started drifting northwards until it collided with the Asian land mass. India is still trundling northwards at the geologically reckless speed of 30 mm a year, and the mountain ranges are still developing. In the middle of the collision belt lies the Indus-Kohistan area, which is on a small ‘oceanic’ plate which has been crushed between the Indian and Asian plates. It was originally a system of volcanic islands, now squeezed and tilted northwards. The Karakoram Highway cuts a convenient section through this geologically fascinating plate, from the base at Pattan to the top at Chalt near Hunza.

The Karakoram mountain range has 12 out of the highest 30 mountains in the world. It covers three-quarters of Pakistan’s northern areas. The name is Turkish and means crumbling rock – an apt description. The range contains the longest glaciers in the world outside the Polar region, four of them longer than 50 km (30 miles).

Pakistan’s northern areas were traditionally lumped together under the name of Dardistan, meaning the country of the Dards, a collective name for the many tribes inhabiting the area. Because the tribes live in isolated valleys, they have retained great cultural and linguistic diversity. Marco Polo on his travels along the Silk Route in the 13^th century, called it ‘noisy with kingdoms’.