On the second day of our trip from Islamabad to Hunza on the Karakorum Highway, our guide Amin told us, that many people missunderstand the meaning of the word highway. Highway in this case means only high- and nothing else...

By then we haven't only heard about that some times, we've already felt it for almost 27 hours.

The Karakorum Highway (KKH) leads from 45km after Islamabad to Kashgar in China- 1200km and from just about 600m up to 4730m asl on the Khunjerab pass. The average speed you travel at is around 30km/h.

Most of the time the street is narrow and unpaved or under construction. We've been checked by the police at least 10 times. In some sections they even joined us in the car with their Kalaschnikows to make sure we are safe.

When you are driving along the KKH you don't expect what you are seeing as soon as you enter the Hunza valley.

Suddenly it's all green and the valley is wide, surrounded by 7000m+ peaks.

Just after we arrived in our Hotel in Karimabad in the late afternoon, we were lucky- for a short time the clouds disappeared and the shy peaks of Rakaposhi, Ultar I, Ultar II, Hunza and Diran appeared. We were stoked. It's like zooming the Alps two times and still adding some higher peaks on top of it.

But the mountains were hiding again soon and also the forecast for the next day was not perfect, so we decided to make a short trek up to 3500m to start with acclimatization and get an overview of the valley...

We are hoping that the next days will allow at least some short flights...