Northern
areas of pakistan |
The
Northern Areas of pakistan(Shumali Ilaqe Jat) is officially
referred to by the government of Pakistan as the Federally
Administered Northern Areas (FANA).
The Northern Areas of pakistan(shumali
llaqajat)is the most spectacular and fascinating region
of Pakistan. It is here that the world's three famous
mountain ranges meet - the Himalayas, the Karakorams
and the Hindukush. The whole Northern Pakistan has come
to be known as a paradise for mountaineers, climbers,
trekkers, hikers and anglers of the most famous “Trout
fish”.
In the northern areas
of Pakistan, at a stone's throw from the Amu Darya,
is” Bam-e-Dunya” (the roof of the world).
This was the name given to the great Pamir plateau,
apex of six of the mightiest mountain ranges of the
world.
In the northern areas
of The historic Karakoram pass 5,575 metres, an ancient
trading route between Kashmir and Xinjiang, gives its
name to the range west of it that forms the watershed
between the Indus and the Central Asian deserts. The
eastern boundary of the Karakoram is the upper Shyok
River from where it extends over 322 km. westwards to
the Karumbar river and the Hindukush range. To the north
the Shaksgam tributary of the Yarkand River and south
by the Indus bound the Karakoram. Here, the Nanga Parbat
8,126 metres massif is the western anchor of the great
Himalayan range which stretches in an arc 24,124 km.
east to Burma, a boundary and barrier, "the razor's
edge" which for centuries has determined the destiny
of the Indian sub-continent.
Such is the setting
of Karakoram Range, this remnant of a primeval ice age,
"the third pole," with extensive glacier systems
and the greatest concentration of lofty mountains in
the world. Some of the largest glaciers outside sub-polar
regions flow in the Karakorams. For its sheer mountain
grandeur and breath-taking panorama of beauty, few places
can match the superb landscape through which the Karakoram
Highway snakes. A fantastic and unforgettable spectacle
is the passage of the Highway along the Baltura glacier,
rated among the worlds seventh largest.
The Khunjerab Pass,
which the Highway crosses, and the nearby Mintaka Pass
lie astride the fabulous ancient Silk Route that led
from Europe to Asia and over which history's most famous
tourists once travelled. These include the Venetian
trader Marco Polo after who has been made the wild Marco
Polo sheep in the thirteenth century, the Chinese Monk
Fe Hien in the fourth century and the Arab historian,
Al-Beruni in the eleventh century.
The Siachin glacier
is 75 km, the Hispar, (52 km) joints the Biafo at the
Hispar La 5,154 metres to form an ice corridor, 116
km. long.The Batura too is 58 km. in length. But the
most outstanding of these rivers of ice is the Baltoro
(62 km). This mighty glacier fed by some 30 tributaries
constitutes a surface area of 1,219 sq. km. Of the fourteen
over 8,000 m peaks on earth, four occupy an amphitheatre
at the head of Baltoro. There are K-2 (8,611) second
only to Everest, Broad Peak (8,047 metres) Gasherbrum-I
(8,068 metres), Gasherbrum-II (8,035 metres).
Seen from a distance,
the Baltoro appears smooth and beautiful but in fact
it is a chaotic tumbling mass of rock and ice, troughs
and hillocks and the debris of centuries.
It is a unique remote corner of earth. For here, in
a frozen wilderness a crag, cornices and crevasses,
raise towering spires of granite, great snowy peaks
with fluted icy ridges and pinnacles that pierce the
sky.In the Lesser Karakorams there are equally great
peaks such as Rakaposhi (7,788 metres), the dominant
giant in Hunza valley. Its north face is fantastic precipice
- 5,791 metres of plunging snow and ice.
There are scores of
over 7,000 m peaks in the Karakoram Range and hundreds
of nameless summits below 6,000 metres, mere points
on the map. The shapes, forms, sizes, colours provide
tremendous contrast, which defy description. K-2, the
undisputed monarch of the sky, Broad Peak, massive and
ugly, Muztagh Tower, deceptively, sheer. Gasherbrum-II,
the "Egyptian Pyramid" that even Cheops would
have preferred for a tomb, Chogolisa, the "Bride
Peak", in whose eternal embrace lies Hermann Buhi,
the first man to climb Nanga Parbat. The Cathedrals
of the Baltoro with their great knife-edge ridges, the
sky cleaving monoliths of the Trango Towers and most
beautiful of all - the Peak of Perfection - Paiyu, (6,600
metres) first climbed by a Pakistani expedition in 1977.
The Hindukush
is also a mountain vastness containing hundreds of peaks,
many above 7,000 metres including a Trichmir 7,705 metre
that is the highest point of the range
