Karakoram Highway Cycling Tour

Trip highlights

• Riding to 4,693 metres at Khunjerab

  The highest paved frontier crossing on earth, inside a national park with yaks and marmots on the verge. You ride the last of it in thin, cold air with the Chinese gate ahead — and there are few finishing lines in cycling like it.

• Rakaposhi from the road at Minapin

  7,788 metres standing more or less directly above the highway, with about 6,000 metres of relief from the river to the summit. Most riders stop here without being told to.

• Attabad Lake and the tunnels

  A mountainside came down in January 2010, dammed the Hunza river and drowned the highway for five years. You ride the replacement: a chain of tunnels behind twenty-odd kilometres of turquoise water.

• A rest day in Karimabad, not a transfer day

  Baltit Fort, seven centuries old and properly restored, Altit below it, and the Duikar ridge for anyone whose legs still want a climb. Placed before the high half of the ride because that is where the recovery does most good.

• Short stages, so you can actually ride them

  32 km on the day into Karimabad, 41 to Sost. Operators selling 100 km days on the KKH are selling you a jeep ride with a bike on the roof, because that is how those days end above 3,000 metres.

• A jeep behind you all the way

  Luggage, spare wheels, tools, water and a mechanic's toolkit travel in it, and so does anyone who wants to. Using it is normal — most riders do on at least one stage, and nobody keeps score.

At a glance

• About 400 km ridden, 7 riding daysShort stages on purpose: the difficulty here is altitude and consecutive days, not distance.
• Khunjerab Pass, 4,693 mThe highest paved international border crossing in the world, and the top of the ride.
• Support jeep on every stageLuggage, spares, water and a seat for anyone who has had enough that day.
• 13 days, Islamabad to IslamabadIncluding a rest day at Karimabad and a contingency day for the highway closing.
• Karakoram HighwayChilas to the Chinese border, up the Indus and then the Hunza river past Rakaposhi and the Passu Cones.
• Hotels throughout, en suiteThree and four star, twin share, with single rooms on request. No camping on this itinerary.
• May to SeptemberKhunjerab is a summer road. June and September balance an open pass against valley heat.

Day by day

1. 1Day 1Arrive Islamabad — bike build and briefing

   

   Met at the airport and driven to the hotel. The afternoon is for building bikes, checking them over and sorting anything that did not survive the flight — we have a mechanic's toolkit and a track pump, and the bike shops of Islamabad are twenty minutes away if something is properly broken. The briefing covers the road, the traffic, the altitude profile and how the support jeep works. If you land early there is time for the Faisal Mosque and the Margalla foothills before dinner.

2. 2Day 2Drive Islamabad to Chilas — 461 km on the Karakoram Highway

   

   A long transfer day and the only one, eight to nine hours north through Taxila, Hassan Abdal and Mansehra, then onto the Karakoram Highway proper and up the Indus gorge to Chilas at around 1,250 metres. The bikes travel on the roof. It is worth watching rather than sleeping through: you pass the junction where the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush meet, and the viewpoint for Nanga Parbat at 8,126 m, which is the ninth highest mountain on earth and stands entirely clear of anything else.

3. 3Day 3First ride — Chilas towards Gilgit, 128 km with the jeep in support

   

   The first day on the bike and the longest on paper: 128 kilometres of the Karakoram Highway between Chilas and Gilgit, ridden in sections with the jeep leapfrogging ahead so the group can split the distance according to how everyone feels on their first day at altitude. The gorge here is enormous and almost bare — grey walls, the Indus grey below them, and very little green until the Gilgit river valley opens out. Hot work in the middle of the day, which is why we start early. Night in Gilgit at about 1,500 metres.

4. 4Day 4Gilgit to Minapin — 80 km, and Rakaposhi above the road

   

   Eighty kilometres up the Hunza river with around 1,350 metres of climbing and a fast descent in the middle, finishing at Minapin at roughly 2,030 metres. This is the day Rakaposhi arrives: 7,788 metres, standing above the highway with the summit visible from the saddle, and the roadside viewpoint where every vehicle in Pakistan stops for tea. The riding is steady rather than steep — trade-route gradients, the road climbing with the river — and it is the first stage where the altitude is doing something to your legs.

5. 5Day 5Minapin to Karimabad — a short 32 km into Hunza

   

   Thirty-two kilometres and about 700 metres of climbing into Karimabad at roughly 2,400 metres. A deliberately short stage: it puts you into Hunza by lunchtime with the afternoon free, and it is the last easy day before the road goes properly high. The ride crosses the Hunza river and climbs the terrace to Karimabad, with Rakaposhi behind you and the Ultar wall ahead. Two nights here.

6. 6Day 6Rest day in Karimabad — Baltit Fort, Altit and Duikar

   

   Off the bike, and placed here on purpose: recovery before the high half of the ride does more than recovery after it. Baltit Fort stands at the top of the village, around seven centuries old and pulled back from collapse by a restoration that is studied internationally; Altit is older still, with a royal garden below it. Anyone whose legs are still willing can ride or walk up to the Eagle's Nest at Duikar, about 2,850 metres, which is a proper climb and an optional one. Everyone else drinks apricot juice and looks at the mountains.

7. 7Day 7Karimabad to Sost — 41 km past Attabad and the Passu Cones

   

   Forty-one kilometres and the most photographed stretch of the whole highway. Out of Karimabad and down to Attabad Lake, where a landslide dammed the Hunza river in January 2010, drowned four villages and cut the road for five years — you ride the replacement alignment, a chain of tunnels behind twenty kilometres of turquoise water. Beyond it the Passu Cones stand over the road, a serrated ridge that looks unreal in photographs and worse in person. Night at Sost, the last town before the border, with customs sheds and truck parks and a very different feel from Hunza.

8. 8Day 8The Khunjerab Pass — 4,693 m, and down to Gulmit

   

   The day you came for. From Sost the road climbs into Khunjerab National Park, where yaks, marmots and sometimes ibex are on the verge, and keeps climbing until the valley opens into a broad snowfield with the Chinese border gate at the top of it at 4,693 metres. About 80 kilometres of the day is ridden and the rest is driven; the split is decided on the morning by how the group is going, because at this altitude the honest plan is the one made on the day. Cold at the top whatever the calendar says, and windy. Then the descent, which is long, fast and the best hour of the trip, down to Gulmit for the night.

9. 9Day 9Gulmit to Minapin — 68 km, and 1,450 metres of descent

   

   Sixty-eight kilometres back down the valley with far more descending than climbing — about 1,450 metres down against 680 up — which after the pass feels like being paid back. The same road looks completely different ridden the other way, with the light on the opposite walls and the Passu ridge behind you rather than ahead. Night at Minapin, under Rakaposhi again.

10. 10Day 10Minapin to Gilgit — 80 km, and the last of the riding

    

    The final stage: 80 kilometres back down the Hunza river to Gilgit, mostly downhill, finishing in the early afternoon. Anyone who would rather walk than ride can take the morning up towards the Minapin glacier and the Rakaposhi base camp meadow instead, with the jeep bringing them down to meet the group. Gilgit in the afternoon, bikes cleaned and packed, and the last dinner in the mountains.

11. 11Day 11Fly Gilgit to Islamabad

    

    The morning flight south is an hour of low flying through the Indus gorge with Nanga Parbat off the left wing, and it is the best value scheduled flight in Pakistan. It is also entirely weather-dependent and cancels often, which is exactly what tomorrow is held for: if it does not go, we drive, and the drive is a long day. Boxed bikes travel as sports baggage on the flight, and in the jeep if we drive.

12. 12Day 12Contingency day in Islamabad

    

    Held in reserve, and used often enough that we will not sell this trip without it — it absorbs a cancelled Gilgit flight or a highway closure without costing anyone their flight home. If it is not needed, it is a free day in Islamabad: the Faisal Mosque, the Pakistan Monument, the lanes and restaurants of Saidpur village, the Margalla ridge, or a long lunch and nothing else. Bikes get boxed properly this afternoon rather than at midnight.

13. 13Day 13Departure from Islamabad

    

    Breakfast and a transfer to the airport with the bikes. Most international departures from Islamabad leave late in the evening, so a day room can be held if your flight is a night one, and extra nights or an onward extension are easy to arrange — Lahore is two hours south and worth a couple of days on its own.

Good to know

How hard is it, really

Around 400 kilometres over seven riding days, on sealed road, with a support vehicle. On gradient alone it is well within a strong weekend rider's range: the Karakoram Highway is a trade route, so it climbs long and shallow beside the rivers rather than in alpine ramps.

What makes it challenging is everything else. You ride on consecutive days, you sleep progressively higher, and the last stage tops out at 4,693 metres where there is roughly 60 per cent of the oxygen you started with. Heat in the Indus gorge can pass 40 °C in July while the pass is near freezing. If you can ride four or five hours back to back and still enjoy the fifth day, you will be fine here — and if you cannot, the jeep is not a penalty box.

Bring your own bike if you possibly can

Hire exists in Islamabad and the choice is thin — a handful of hardtails, not a fitted road bike. Most riders bring their own, and it is worth the airline fee to be on a bike that fits you for seven days at altitude.

What to bring with it: spare tubes in your size, a spare derailleur hanger for your frame (this is the part nobody carries and the part that ends trips), brake pads, a chain link, and your own pedals, saddle, shoes and helmet whatever else you hire. Tyres of 28 mm or wider are more comfortable than anything narrower, gravel tyres are ideal, and a low bottom gear matters more than a fast top one. We carry a track pump, a full toolkit and spares for common standards, and there are competent mechanics in Gilgit and Karimabad — but not for anything proprietary.

What the support jeep actually does

It runs with the group on every stage. It carries the luggage, the water, the spares and the food, it marks the group on the road for traffic behind, and it carries riders. Getting in is ordinary — most people do it at least once, usually somewhere above 4,000 metres on the Khunjerab day — and nobody on our staff keeps a tally. The alternative, which some operators run, is a rider alone on a highway at altitude with a mechanical and no phone signal, and we are not willing to sell that.

Traffic, and what the road is like

This is a working public highway, not a closed course. There are trucks, buses and Hiace vans, and the Pakistani horn means "I am here" rather than "get out of the way". The surface on the Chinese-rebuilt sections is excellent — better than most European roads — and rougher in patches between Chilas and Gilgit. We ride in a group with the jeep behind, start early when the road is quiet, and a guide who knows the blind corners rides with you. Riders are consistently surprised by how much calmer it is than they expected. Take a rear light and wear something bright anyway.

The highway closes sometimes

Landslides and rockfall after rain can shut the Karakoram Highway for a few hours or a day, and the Gilgit flight cancels in poor weather. That is why day twelve is a contingency day and why we ask you not to book an onward international flight for the evening of day eleven. Neither is a remote possibility; both are a normal part of a Karakoram summer.

Altitude, and how the itinerary handles it

The profile is built to acclimatise you: Chilas at about 1,250 m, Gilgit 1,500, Minapin 2,030, Karimabad 2,400 with a rest day, Sost higher again, and only then the ride to 4,693 m — which you go up and come back down from the same day rather than sleeping high. Expect to feel it above 4,000 m: shortness of breath, a headache, legs that produce noticeably less. That is normal. What is not normal is worsening headache, nausea or unsteadiness, and the guide's call to put someone in the jeep is final.

The border, and what you can and cannot do at it

Khunjerab is the highest paved international crossing in the world and you can ride to the gate, photograph the marker and stand with a foot in each country. You cannot cross: that needs a Chinese visa arranged well in advance and a different itinerary. The pass sits inside Khunjerab National Park and the entry fee is included. Carry your passport on that day — it is checked at Sost.

Season, and which months to choose

May to September. Khunjerab is a summer road and the top is snowbound outside that window. June and September are the best compromise: the pass is reliably open and the Indus gorge is not yet, or no longer, at its worst. July and August are hotter in the low sections and bring more rain, which is when the highway is most likely to be blocked. Private groups can pick their own dates inside the season.

Where you sleep, and what the food is like

Hotels every night, three and four star by local standards, twin share and en suite, with single rooms on request. No camping on this itinerary. Full board is included and the food is better than most riders expect — Hunza in particular does very good vegetarian food, apricots in everything, and enough carbohydrate to ride on. Tell us about dietary requirements two weeks out and they are straightforward to meet.

Questions about this trip