The nirvana of the Karakorum, where the road leads through a glacier maze

Basically, for a report, we traveled to a small village in the mountains of northern Pakistan to visit Virág, the Hungarian girl who moved to Jamalabad and married her chosen one there . But if we were already in the Upper Hunza Valley, which is called the most beautiful part of the country, of course we did a couple of hikes among the high mountains of the Karakorum.

The Upper Hunza Valley lies so far north that it is closer to the Chinese border than to major Pakistani cities. The Hunza river meanders deep between the 6-7 thousand mountain peaks, its water is dammed by dozens of huge glaciers. It immediately became apparent that this part of the Karakoram is just like the Himalayas, only cheaper, closer and less touristic. Of course, close means that it is at least a day's flight away (Budapest–Abu Dhabi–Islamábád), plus 14-18 hours of carpooling from Budapest, punctuated by horrible vibrations.

In addition to a pre-acclimatization tour - which I described in the previous article - my girlfriend and I selected two larger tours. One is the broad Patundas ridge with an incredible view, whose high mountain pastures lie at 4,200-4,300 meters and rise between two beautiful glaciers. The other leads to the country's highest lake, Rush Lake at 4,700 meters. During the tours, we crossed gigantic glaciers six times and wandered for long hours in the glittering ice maze. Because of the glacier guides, we also had to hire local guides who recognized themselves on the back of the ice.

Of the two routes, the Patundas was the more impressive, the secrets of the exciting glacier crossing and the world above are vividly presented in our video about the tour:

The tour starts from Lake Borith above the village of Husseini, at an altitude of 2,800 meters. You can get there on foot, by hitchhiking, or by the jeep of the mountain guides from the settlement next to the Karakorum Highway. From there, it is two hours to each camp on the side of the glacier valley, on a crumbling, stony path.

You can get to the other side of the glacier in about three hours (the video shows you how), where camp two awaits. The first balancing on the slippery ice ridge above the glacier crevasse is a bit scary, without the guide and his ice ax we would quickly end up in the deep. Most of them sleep here and climb the ridge the next day.

The second camp is good because on the edge of the glacier you can basically tap clean drinking water from small streams trickling out of the ice, but in the third camp above you only have to wait for the hot sun, there is usually no water. We pitch the tent and cook dinner over an open fire in a rambling stone shepherd's hut, a mix of local vegetables, meat, lentils and spices, along with Pakistani tea (mixed with cream and salt). My girlfriend is afraid of her stomach, she prefers to pour hot water on the freeze-dried powdered food we brought with us. At night, you can constantly hear the roaring and deep crackling of the nearby glacier.

The Ukrainian number one dreams of disrupting Russian logistics and easing pressure on the fronts within his territory. He pleading urgency, and blowing the heat, accusing his partners of "being afraid" and of practicing a double standard: demanding with the Ukrainian side, which has its hands tied behind its back; Accommodating with the Israeli partner, which can solve the Palestinian question in its own way without incurring anything other than a few verbal reprops (and which is moreover protected from most of the Iranian or Lebanese salves by a discreet us-british air shield, with French participation, which had proved its worth on April 14).

The next day, we hike up more than 800 meters on a path that winds along the side of the mountain among goats, basking lizards and bushy old pines. The smell of thyme patches is especially strong. At 4,200 meters, we reach the wide grass ridge, where animals (cattle, goats) graze in the summer. It's quite amazing, but somehow the herd is driven across the glacier by the shepherds. Now the shepherd's hut built of stones (the triple camp) is empty, because during the season a snow leopard ran amok on the mountain.

We walk up the slightly rising ridge. There are several vantage points where you can sit down and watch the gigantic, snow-white ice wall of the Passu Glacier, or the Batura Glacier snaking deep on the north side. It is said that there is not another point in Pakistan from which the glacier offers such a breathtaking view, even two. Only the wind blows softly, beyond that there is a silent, huge and shocking silence.

You could walk up the ridge up to 5,000 meters without any alpine skills, but we were not prepared for such a long hike, so we are content with the natural lodge at 4,300-4,400 meters.

We spend several hours in the Patundas dimension, out of space and time, where all earthly problems disappear. Descending, we sleep again in camp two, then the next day we cross the Passu glacier again and walk down to the starting point.