Pakistan

South Asia

A South Asian republic that holds one of the greatest concentrations of high mountains on earth in its far north. Gilgit-Baltistan, where the Karakoram, Himalaya and Hindu Kush ranges meet, contains five of the world's fourteen peaks above 8,000 metres, including K2 at 8,611 metres, the second highest mountain on the planet. The Karakoram Highway climbs from the plains through the Indus gorge to the Khunjerab Pass on the Chinese border at 4,733 metres, threading the Hunza and Nagar valleys past Rakaposhi and the Passu Cones. The season for the northern mountains runs late spring through autumn.

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What you can do in Pakistan

Motorcycle Adventure Touring

Karakoram HighwayMay Jun Jul Aug Sep OctRiding the Karakoram Highway is one of the world's great motorcycle journeys, a paved thread climbing from the plains of Pakistan to the Khunjerab Pass on the Chinese border at 4,733 metres, the highest paved international frontier crossing anywhere. Built over two decades by Pakistani and Chinese crews through some of the most broken terrain on the planet, the road follows the Indus gorge and then the Hunza river north, past the hanging glaciers of Rakaposhi, the spire cluster of the Passu Cones, and the turquoise Attabad Lake that drowned a stretch of the old road in 2010 and is now bypassed by long tunnels. The classic ride runs from Islamabad up through Chilas, Gilgit and the Hunza valley to Sost and the Khunjerab, with side roads to Skardu and the Deosai plateau. It is a rider's road for the scenery and the sheer altitude rather than for speed, with hairpins, rough patches, glacial meltwater across the tarmac and army checkposts, all set under a continuous horizon of high peaks.

Mountaineering / Summits

ConcordiaJun Jul AugConcordia is the staging point for the greatest concentration of 8,000-metre peaks on earth, and the reason serious mountaineers come to the Karakoram. Four of the world's fourteen highest mountains ring the Baltoro here: K2 at 8,611 metres, the second highest and by consensus the hardest of them all, Broad Peak at 8,051 metres, and Gasherbrum I and II at 8,080 and 8,035 metres. K2 base camp sits at the foot of the Godwin-Austen glacier, with the Abruzzi Spur rising straight above it. Broad Peak and the Gasherbrums are the usual first Karakoram 8,000ers, less technical than K2 but still fully committing, with base camps on the same glacier system. Expeditions run in a short summer window, supported by Balti high-altitude porters, and the whole arena sits days of glacier travel beyond the last road at Askole. This is expedition mountaineering at its most serious, with no guaranteed rescue and weather that has made K2 one of the deadliest peaks in the sport.

Trekking / Hiking

Wildlife Safaris

DeosaiJul Aug SepDeosai is a national park protecting the world's second highest plateau, a rolling sea of grass and wildflowers above 4,000 metres between Skardu and Astore, and the last real stronghold of the Himalayan brown bear in Pakistan. The park was created in 1993 largely to save this bear, and its summer population of a few dozen animals is the reason wildlife watchers come, tracked on foot with park officers around the Bara Pani and Kala Pani meadows. The plateau also holds golden marmots that whistle from every slope, Himalayan ibex on the rim, red foxes and golden eagles, and in July and August it turns into a carpet of lupins, forget-me-nots and dozens of other alpine flowers around the deep blue of Sheosar Lake. Snowbound and empty for most of the year, Deosai is open and alive only for a short high-summer window, which is exactly when the bears are out and the flowers are up.

Witness / Attend

Best months at a glance

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Moto Touring
Mountaineering
Trekking
Wildlife Safaris
Witness / Attend