About Northern Areas
The Northern Area is the most spectacular and fascinating
region of Pakistan. It is here that the world's three famous
mountain ranges meet - the Himalayas, the Karakorams and the
Hindukush. The whole Northern Pakistan has come to be known
as a paradise for mountaineers, climbers, trekkers, hikers
and anglers of the most famous “Trout fish”.
In the northern regions of Pakistan, at a
stone's throw from the Amu Darya, is” Bam-e-Dunya”
(the roof of the world). This was the name given to the great
Pamir plateau, apex of six of the mightiest mountain ranges
of the world.
The historic Karakoram pass 5,575 metres,
an ancient trading route between Kashmir and Xinjiang, gives
its name to the range west of it that forms the watershed
between the Indus and the Central Asian deserts. The eastern
boundary of the Karakoram is the upper Shyok River from where
it extends over 322 km. westwards to the Karumbar river and
the Hindukush range. To the north the Shaksgam tributary of
the Yarkand River and south by the Indus bound the Karakoram.
Here, the Nanga Parbat 8,126 metres massif is the western
anchor of the great Himalayan range which stretches in an
arc 24,124 km. east to Burma, a boundary and barrier, "the
razor's edge" which for centuries has determined the
destiny of the Indian sub-continent.
Such is the setting of Karakoram Range, this
remnant of a primeval ice age, "the third pole,"
with extensive glacier systems and the greatest concentration
of lofty mountains in the world. Some of the largest glaciers
outside sub-polar regions flow in the Karakorams. For its
sheer mountain grandeur and breath-taking panorama of beauty,
few places can match the superb landscape through which the
Karakoram Highway snakes. A fantastic and unforgettable spectacle
is the passage of the Highway along the Baltura glacier, rated
among the worlds seventh largest.
The Khunjerab Pass, which the Highway crosses,
and the nearby Mintaka Pass lie astride the fabulous ancient
Silk Route that led from Europe to Asia and over which history's
most famous tourists once travelled. These include the Venetian
trader Marco Polo after who has been made the wild Marco Polo
sheep in the thirteenth century, the Chinese Monk Fe Hien
in the fourth century and the Arab historian, Al-Beruni in
the eleventh century.
The Siachin glacier is 75 km, the Hispar,
(52 km) joints the Biafo at the Hispar La 5,154 metres to
form an ice corridor, 116 km. long.The Batura too is 58 km.
in length. But the most outstanding of these rivers of ice
is the Baltoro (62 km). This mighty glacier fed by some 30
tributaries constitutes a surface area of 1,219 sq. km. Of
the fourteen over 8,000 m peaks on earth, four occupy an amphitheatre
at the head of Baltoro. There are K-2 (8,611) second only
to Everest, Broad Peak (8,047 metres) Gasherbrum-I (8,068
metres), Gasherbrum-II (8,035 metres).
Seen from a distance, the Baltoro appears
smooth and beautiful but in fact it is a chaotic tumbling
mass of rock and ice, troughs and hillocks and the debris
of centuries.
It is a unique remote corner of earth. For here, in a frozen
wilderness a crag, cornices and crevasses, raise towering
spires of granite, great snowy peaks with fluted icy ridges
and pinnacles that pierce the sky.In the Lesser Karakorams
there are equally great peaks such as Rakaposhi (7,788 metres),
the dominant giant in Hunza valley. Its north face is fantastic
precipice - 5,791 metres of plunging snow and ice.
There are scores of over 7,000 m peaks in
the Karakoram Range and hundreds of nameless summits below
6,000 metres, mere points on the map. The shapes, forms, sizes,
colours provide tremendous contrast, which defy description.
K-2, the undisputed monarch of the sky, Broad Peak, massive
and ugly, Muztagh Tower, deceptively, sheer. Gasherbrum-II,
the "Egyptian Pyramid" that even Cheops would have
preferred for a tomb, Chogolisa, the "Bride Peak",
in whose eternal embrace lies Hermann Buhi, the first man
to climb Nanga Parbat. The Cathedrals of the Baltoro with
their great knife-edge ridges, the sky cleaving monoliths
of the Trango Towers and most beautiful of all - the Peak
of Perfection - Paiyu, (6,600 metres) first climbed by a Pakistani
expedition in 1977.
The Hindukush is also a mountain vastness
containing hundreds of peaks, many above 7,000 metres including
a Trichmir 7,705 metre that is the highest point of the range.
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