Just before 3pm on 15 May 2024, circa 90 minutes after we left Shangrila Resort, we were roughly halfway through our drive from Skardu to Khaplu.
We stopped for a few minutes, to stretch our legs and “take in” the landscape; in this part of the world it is only very occasionally possible – let alone relatively safe – for a vehicle to stop and park.
By “normal”/global standards, the landscape around/above/below us was “epic”, prodigiously vertiginous, and strikingly stark.
By Karakoram standards, however, it was merely “typical”; my photographic vantage point was not a signposted “lookout”, nor a celebrated “beauty spot”.
Not visible in the photo, but distantly-roaring, below us: Asia’s third longest river
The Indus was already present before the Karakoram and the Himalaya formed. (The Indus managed to maintain its course. The world’s highest two mountain ranges are still rising)
Fifteen minutes later – and considerably “downhill” – we reached the point where the Shyok River flows into the Indus.
According to the signpost beside that confluence, the Indus is “the axis of Pakistan”; it drains the entire nation.