Drive in Canyon Rondu

In Gilgit it takes some time before your luggage gets loaded into a small minibus and three passengers get crammed to double seats /not very nice specialty of Pakistani/. It then continues 11 km to the south, where it joins KKH and then another 27 kilometers downstream to the confluence of Gilgit with Indus.

Here the bus crosses the river Gilgit over the relatively shaky bridge and slowly turns into the canyon Rondu through the arid plain. From this plan is absolutely stunning view of Nanga Parbat, which exceeds the surroundings by around seven kilometers.

This place is interesting also by the fact that the confluence of Indus river with Giglit is regarded as the   place where the three highest mountains in the world meet – Himalaya, Karakoram and HinduKush.

Already after a few hundred meters away there are completely different outlooks than before. At the beginning peeks on the horizon glaciated ridge of mountain Haramosh I. (7 406 m asl) /see the introductory photo of the photoreport/, then the canyon gets incredibly narrowed in a while and Indus flows in only a few meters wide riverbed.

Dramatic sceneries almost all the time – that's the first thing that comes to your mind after long hours of driving through the canyon. Directly from the river tower several hundred meters up to kilometer high rock walls, in addition courageous built bridges with paths leading to remote villages. There is a sophisticated irrigation system in places with some water bringing green life to this mountain desert.

If you know wide and peaceful valley of Indus, for example, somewhere near Leh in Ladakh, you would not guess that the river pushing here its way through the mountains is still the same river.

You can see here that humans managed to build fields also in so improbable places.

Life goes here very slowly and the villages have only a few buildings, fields and fruit trees.

Roughly halfway stops the majority of minibuses for refreshments in the cafeteria at the bridge over the river Sta, which is pretty wild. Although it does not seem that this valley widens a few kilometers upstream and there is a large oasis and village Stak. Even further in the valley is then the glacier of the mountain Haramosh.

Some sceneries look like as from different planet.

There is a good tarmac road, of course, in a lot of places damaged by frequent landslides.

After 6–8 hours (given the road conditions and speed) you will slowly approach Skardu – Pakistan's capital for climbers.