Hunza & Gojal
Passu, Patundas and the Khunjerab Pass
Upper Hunza: serrated peaks, two glaciers you can walk up to, and the highest paved border crossing in the world at 4,693 metres.
Author: Musab243, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Duration
- 8 days
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Highest point
- 4,693 m
- Best season
- May – Oct
- Budget on the ground
- 35–60 € per day
- Group size
- 2–10
Overview
The upper valley
Where Hunza is soft and green, everything above Attabad turns barer and sharper. Passu is a small village between two glaciers, with the Passu Cones behind it: rock spires that look as though someone designed them for a poster.
The appeal here is how immediate everything is. The glacier is half an hour from the village. You walk over, stand at the ice, and nobody asks for a ticket.
Patundas
If you do one strenuous thing this week, make it this. Fourteen hundred metres of ascent in a day to a high pasture overlooking both the Passu and Batura glaciers at the same time. In the Alps there would be a cable car. Here there is a shepherd’s hut.
Khunjerab
The highest paved border crossing in the world, 4,693 metres. You drive up, stand in the wind for twenty minutes, take the obligatory photo at the marker and drive back. It is slightly absurd and still very impressive, not least because you pass yaks and marmots on the way.
One thing to know: without a Chinese visa you go no further. The gate is the end of the trip.
Day by day
1–2
Travel to Passu
Via Gilgit and Karimabad to Passu in the upper Hunza valley, at 2,500 m.
Day 3
Passu Glacier
A short walk to the glacier margin. You stand right at the ice, with no equipment and no guide required.
Day 4
Hussaini bridge and Borith Lake
The suspension bridge, then on to the small salt lake and its migrating birds.
Day 5
Patundas
The long day: around 1,400 metres of ascent to the high pasture between the Passu and Batura glaciers. From the top you see both at once.
Day 6
Rest day in Passu
Well earned after Patundas.
Day 7
Khunjerab Pass
Drive to 4,693 m at the Chinese border through Khunjerab National Park. It is cold, windy and genuinely strange up there.
Day 8
Return
Back towards Gilgit.
Practical details
- Permits
- Khunjerab National Park entry is paid at the barrier. Nothing else.
- Visa
- E-visa. Note: the border itself cannot be crossed without a Chinese visa. You drive to the gate and back.
- Acclimatisation
- Passu is at 2,500 m. The Khunjerab Pass is reached by car, and 4,693 m without acclimatisation is noticeable. Do not rush, drink plenty.
- Getting there
- About four hours from Gilgit on the Karakoram Highway.
Photos
