After the 6 hours hiking the previous day we decided to take it easy today by booking another driver to take us to the Hoper Glacier on the other side of the Hunza river.
On our drive there we left the Karakorum Highway and with that any maintained wide enough or safe road. Now it was a dirt road barely wide enough for 2 passing cars, lots of dangerous turns and gaping abyss right next to the road. But that's why you hire a driver here who's experienced and knows when mobile usage while driving is not appropriate.
The drive up to the glacier took us through villages and offered amazing views on just another autumn landscape with mountain background.
The glacier itself reaches down until 2900m and that's where we got down from the car and started hiking along the edge, with a local guide of course. The glacier moves about 4 inches per day which means that pretty much every day one would have to find a new path on it. But as it is not recommended to walk on glaciers anyway we decided to stay on the path along the rocks. The locals however have to cross the glacier when collecting firewood or grass for the animals.
The guide took us to a by him defined point with best views and back. It really was a light hike today.
But to see the massive ice coming down from the mountain is impressive and when we sat still we could almost hear the movements in the ice... truly inspirational!
As usual over here we had been the only tourists around and tall blond tourists are even rarer these days, so lots of attention is guaranteed. Unfortunately the authentic impression of the village was a bit destroyed when news about the arriving tourists had spread and 5 men tried to sell us their necklaces. After we came back from the glacier even some souvenir shops had opened in the hope to catch our attention. The poor people don't really have much traffic here these days.
On our way back we decided to also visit the other fort in the neighboring village of ours (confusingly called Altit Fort). Even though this fort is built much lower than yesterday's Baltit Fort it overlooks another part of the valley, but design and purpose was very similar.
This time we didn't have a guide but were pretty much on the run from a group of 20-30 Pakistani city girls in bright colorful dupattas who checked in together with us. Not only that it was an immense chattering in the small rooms of the fort, we both were gaped at, me for being a gory and Maryam for wearing western cloths... Hence we spend the most time at the fort cafe over a warming vegetable soup.
After a longer than expected walk home we were finally tired enough to go straight to bed after sunset as it still was the warmest place at the hotel.
On our drive there we left the Karakorum Highway and with that any maintained wide enough or safe road. Now it was a dirt road barely wide enough for 2 passing cars, lots of dangerous turns and gaping abyss right next to the road. But that's why you hire a driver here who's experienced and knows when mobile usage while driving is not appropriate.
The drive up to the glacier took us through villages and offered amazing views on just another autumn landscape with mountain background.
The glacier itself reaches down until 2900m and that's where we got down from the car and started hiking along the edge, with a local guide of course. The glacier moves about 4 inches per day which means that pretty much every day one would have to find a new path on it. But as it is not recommended to walk on glaciers anyway we decided to stay on the path along the rocks. The locals however have to cross the glacier when collecting firewood or grass for the animals.
The guide took us to a by him defined point with best views and back. It really was a light hike today.
But to see the massive ice coming down from the mountain is impressive and when we sat still we could almost hear the movements in the ice... truly inspirational!
As usual over here we had been the only tourists around and tall blond tourists are even rarer these days, so lots of attention is guaranteed. Unfortunately the authentic impression of the village was a bit destroyed when news about the arriving tourists had spread and 5 men tried to sell us their necklaces. After we came back from the glacier even some souvenir shops had opened in the hope to catch our attention. The poor people don't really have much traffic here these days.
On our way back we decided to also visit the other fort in the neighboring village of ours (confusingly called Altit Fort). Even though this fort is built much lower than yesterday's Baltit Fort it overlooks another part of the valley, but design and purpose was very similar.
This time we didn't have a guide but were pretty much on the run from a group of 20-30 Pakistani city girls in bright colorful dupattas who checked in together with us. Not only that it was an immense chattering in the small rooms of the fort, we both were gaped at, me for being a gory and Maryam for wearing western cloths... Hence we spend the most time at the fort cafe over a warming vegetable soup.
Very nice trip post.I hope never been to rush lake tour.thanks
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