The pictured location is circa 80 minutes driving distance from White Sand Lake, and within two hours or so of downtown Kashgar.
(astonishingly low speed limits apply to buses on the Chinese section of the Karakoram Highway, even in benign weather. The road itself is excellent. A rational, less rigid approach to speed limits would enable considerably shorter, safe driving times on days when ice and snow are entirely absent from the Highway’s surface. On the day when the rules become rational, motorists should be sure to wave at the pigs who’ll then be flying high, above)
I took this photo from the bed of the Ghez River, adjacent to where it is crossed by the Karakoram Highway.
i am unsure of the riverbed’s altitude, but it is certainly considerably lower than the surface of White Sand Lake; you should treat with extreme scepticism some figures given-and-mindlessly-repeated in not a few online captions to photos taken in this vicinity.
Just behind me – and not photographed by me – was one of 21st century China’s many oversized, crass, manmade “attraction” edifices.
A future, multi-image post will show more of this location’s natural aspects.
(photo is ©️ Doug Spencer, taken at “5.12 pm” on 24 May 2024. In terms of the sun’s actual position at this particular location, the “real” time of day – more than 3000 ks west of Beijing – was circa 3 pm)