ghazi52
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A Karachiite in the Karakoram
MADEEHA SYED
“Who goes up north in the winter?” my friends remarked, looking at me as if I had gone completely mad.
Yes, no one goes to the Northern areas in the winter, but when ace mountaineer and brother of the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest, Samina Baig Mirza, Ali Baig invites you to his village in Shimshal for a few days and throws in the words ‘ice-skating’ and ‘skiing’, there was no way I could have refused.
Perhaps I was a little mad. It was -7°C in Hunza. Back home in Karachi, where I was 24 hours earlier, it was 23°C.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking from the cold, I wore everything I had brought with me, basked in a spot of sunlight like a cat, had a gas heater placed next to my couch and still felt cold. Had I made a mistake?
Hunza is a strange place in the winter — it’s off-season, and so everything was closed. It was like going to the fair after everyone had left.
A few locals I met on the streets were surprised to see a tourist and asked if I was there for a wedding.
No, I responded, receiving confused faces in return.
Everything was closed in Karimabad, Hunza. No coffee, no walnut cakes. I came when the party was over and everyone had gone home. —Photo by author
I was looking forward to the infamous Café de Hunza’s famous walnut cake and some ‘real’ coffee, but that too was closed.
The Hilltop Hotel where I was staying is perhaps the oldest establishment of its kind. The owner, Javed, lives around the corner, sports an American accent that caught me off guard every time and really goes out of his way to make sure that his guests are all warm and toasty and catered to at his establishment — even if it means opening it up for just one lone guest during the season.
There-is no grid electricity, mobile coverage or internet, but there are all kinds of tourists available in Shimshal! —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
Heated blankets are a godsend. I discovered them only as I was climbing into bed and they gave me hope that perhaps a Karachiite can survive in the north in winter.
I pulled the blanket over the laptop and myself and created a small fort so that all of me was warm, and not just the parts that were covered.
“We’re going to go to Shimshal and will spend a night there so that you can acclimatise to the altitude,” said Mirza when I met him the next morning. I wasn’t the only friend going at this time — Henriette from Norway, was on her way from Gilgit, along with Mirza’s older brother Gul.
While we waited, my preparedness for this trip was inspected: my sneakers were rejected for being unsuitable for hiking, and my Karachi winter clothes (turns out they were made of cotton and not wool) were rejected as being anything but ‘wintery’.
With each rejection, it was becoming clear: I was going to die of hypothermia.
Sensing my panic, Mirza reassured me that I wasn’t, in fact, going to die and that there were lots of warm clothes back in Shimshal for me to wear. We then set off to find trekking shoes.
There are a few mountaineering stores in Karimabad, Hunza, that sell pretty much everything one could possibly need — it all just needs a fix here and there and a proper wash. The shoes I liked were quite snug, had to be sent to the cobbler’s to get a tiny hole stitched up and hurt my toe a bit on the short walk down to the hotel. Apparently, it’s good if you wear shoes that are a bit loose.
And off I go wearing a million layers of borrowed clothes, Mirza of course looks like he just stepped out of a winter sports clothing catalogue. —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
Javed came to the rescue. He had these really nice trekking shoes stowed away at the guesthouse, which he had bought from a visiting mountaineer. They were in mint condition and fit perfectly. Henriette had arrived and we were good to go.
The Northern areas have an almost otherworldly beauty in the winter. Most of the boats from Attabad Lake were gone owing to the recent opening of the Pak-China ‘friendship’ tunnel.
The cobalt blue waters of the lake were frozen in some parts and thawing in others. When we passed Gulmit and approached Passu, the Passu Glacier on our right appeared even more majestic as it towered over the Karakoram Highway; it’s icy white offset by the orange-yellow of the Passu cones that stand tall and proud on the opposite side.
Passu cones standing tall and proud. The road to Shimshal lies behind them. —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
The point at which three mountain ranges meet — Hindukush, Karakoram and Himalayas. —Photo by author
The road to Shimshal is behind these cones It took about a good 18 years to build and was finally ‘completed’ in 2003, and yet, it’s nothing more than space enough for one jeep to pass at a time, carved and cleared around the mountain.
There is no asphalt, so a regular car cannot survive the drive. There are 12 hanging wooden and steel bridges that are not secured at the bottom so it moves between the two ends when a jeep gets on it. Landslides are common and clearing those off the roads is a cumbersome task conducted by the authorities.
The ancient Silk Route. —Photo by author
The drive is heart-stopping and precarious but it took us to a winter wonderland, almost magical in its beauty.
Imagine driving in a crevice between two rocky mountains with a clear half-frozen river running below, giant rocks the kind you see in any Tolkien film and on them, frozen waterfalls.
The farther you move and the higher you climb, the colder it gets. The river is a good 300m below.
Once out of there, we drove over rocks and the frozen river to get to the village. We arrived at night, so we couldn’t see our surroundings properly. Shimshal is situated at an altitude of 3,100m.
People in Shimshal live off the grid with solar-powered lights, which is a fairly recent phenomenon. Development here is slow because of its remoteness. There is no mobile coverage and no Internet.
.....
A Karachiite in the Karakoram
MADEEHA SYED
“Who goes up north in the winter?” my friends remarked, looking at me as if I had gone completely mad.
Yes, no one goes to the Northern areas in the winter, but when ace mountaineer and brother of the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest, Samina Baig Mirza, Ali Baig invites you to his village in Shimshal for a few days and throws in the words ‘ice-skating’ and ‘skiing’, there was no way I could have refused.
Perhaps I was a little mad. It was -7°C in Hunza. Back home in Karachi, where I was 24 hours earlier, it was 23°C.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking from the cold, I wore everything I had brought with me, basked in a spot of sunlight like a cat, had a gas heater placed next to my couch and still felt cold. Had I made a mistake?
Hunza is a strange place in the winter — it’s off-season, and so everything was closed. It was like going to the fair after everyone had left.
A few locals I met on the streets were surprised to see a tourist and asked if I was there for a wedding.
No, I responded, receiving confused faces in return.
I was looking forward to the infamous Café de Hunza’s famous walnut cake and some ‘real’ coffee, but that too was closed.
The Hilltop Hotel where I was staying is perhaps the oldest establishment of its kind. The owner, Javed, lives around the corner, sports an American accent that caught me off guard every time and really goes out of his way to make sure that his guests are all warm and toasty and catered to at his establishment — even if it means opening it up for just one lone guest during the season.
Heated blankets are a godsend. I discovered them only as I was climbing into bed and they gave me hope that perhaps a Karachiite can survive in the north in winter.
I pulled the blanket over the laptop and myself and created a small fort so that all of me was warm, and not just the parts that were covered.
“We’re going to go to Shimshal and will spend a night there so that you can acclimatise to the altitude,” said Mirza when I met him the next morning. I wasn’t the only friend going at this time — Henriette from Norway, was on her way from Gilgit, along with Mirza’s older brother Gul.
While we waited, my preparedness for this trip was inspected: my sneakers were rejected for being unsuitable for hiking, and my Karachi winter clothes (turns out they were made of cotton and not wool) were rejected as being anything but ‘wintery’.
With each rejection, it was becoming clear: I was going to die of hypothermia.
Sensing my panic, Mirza reassured me that I wasn’t, in fact, going to die and that there were lots of warm clothes back in Shimshal for me to wear. We then set off to find trekking shoes.
There are a few mountaineering stores in Karimabad, Hunza, that sell pretty much everything one could possibly need — it all just needs a fix here and there and a proper wash. The shoes I liked were quite snug, had to be sent to the cobbler’s to get a tiny hole stitched up and hurt my toe a bit on the short walk down to the hotel. Apparently, it’s good if you wear shoes that are a bit loose.
Javed came to the rescue. He had these really nice trekking shoes stowed away at the guesthouse, which he had bought from a visiting mountaineer. They were in mint condition and fit perfectly. Henriette had arrived and we were good to go.
The Northern areas have an almost otherworldly beauty in the winter. Most of the boats from Attabad Lake were gone owing to the recent opening of the Pak-China ‘friendship’ tunnel.
The cobalt blue waters of the lake were frozen in some parts and thawing in others. When we passed Gulmit and approached Passu, the Passu Glacier on our right appeared even more majestic as it towered over the Karakoram Highway; it’s icy white offset by the orange-yellow of the Passu cones that stand tall and proud on the opposite side.
The road to Shimshal is behind these cones It took about a good 18 years to build and was finally ‘completed’ in 2003, and yet, it’s nothing more than space enough for one jeep to pass at a time, carved and cleared around the mountain.
There is no asphalt, so a regular car cannot survive the drive. There are 12 hanging wooden and steel bridges that are not secured at the bottom so it moves between the two ends when a jeep gets on it. Landslides are common and clearing those off the roads is a cumbersome task conducted by the authorities.
The drive is heart-stopping and precarious but it took us to a winter wonderland, almost magical in its beauty.
Imagine driving in a crevice between two rocky mountains with a clear half-frozen river running below, giant rocks the kind you see in any Tolkien film and on them, frozen waterfalls.
The farther you move and the higher you climb, the colder it gets. The river is a good 300m below.
Once out of there, we drove over rocks and the frozen river to get to the village. We arrived at night, so we couldn’t see our surroundings properly. Shimshal is situated at an altitude of 3,100m.
People in Shimshal live off the grid with solar-powered lights, which is a fairly recent phenomenon. Development here is slow because of its remoteness. There is no mobile coverage and no Internet.
.....
