The journey toward Khunjerab Pass again started after grabbing some pictures of the area. We are going along a very scenic route with many streams flowing from the surrounding mountains into the Khunjerab River, the beautiful trees that we have witnessed the first time in our life, snow covered mountains and many tunnels on the highway to protect it from land sliding. As we move forward we were climbing up on the mountains and the snow started to appear on the side of the road. Along the path to the Khunjerab Pass, there was a check post were a security officer told us that it will be very much colder up on the mountains and we should get into warmer clothes, then we immediately doubled our wearing. Khunjerab Pass is nearly 83 KM from Sust and it took us nearly 2 hours to arrive at the Khunjerab Pass.
Pakistan and China, the two friendly neighboring countries separated by the highest mountainous range of the world The Karakorum ranges. The only place connecting two countries together over this mountainous range is The Khunjerab Pass, at the altitude of 16,200 foot. Khunjerab Pass is the spot where the Highest Paved international road The Karakorum Highway enters China connects Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China and Gilgit?Baltistan of Pakistan. Since this place is at such high altitude, after November the crossing might be closed because of heavy snow. But after April, the pass is again open and can be visited at any time.
We started out of the jeep and went toward the zero point, this is the place where Karakoram Highway enter the China. As Khunjerab Pass is at 16,200 ft. above one can experience difficulty in breathing at that altitude but we have been eating lots of apricot on our way as apricot provide oxygen to the blood. We are walking on the Karakoram Highway toward zero-point and there is snow on both sides of the highway. Children immediately jumped in the snow and start playing with it. There is a very beautiful monument construct at the zero point between Pakistan and China border, enjoying the cold weather, scenic beauty of the surrounding and awesome panorama of the snow covered mountains we reached the monument. At the monument, there are security persons posted from both sides of the countries and also tourist visiting from both sides of Pakistan and China. We had the photo session with tourist from China as well as with the security officers.
While roaming around and taking photographs we asked the security officer from China if we can just visit the other side of the border, inside china for a few minutes, they allow us for just 5 minutes to go on the other side. We were so pleased, we thanked the officers, and with a brisk walk, we move toward the Khunjerab Zero Point and then entered into the China. With this, our domestic trip has now become foreign tripJ. We walked inside the China till their check post, grab some photographs, children pick up the snow and started playing with it and saying that this is Chinese Snow. With this adventure, we return back to Pakistan side and thanked the officers again for allowing us to enter into China.
