TRAVERSE 119
TRAVEL- PAKISTAN
LEIGH WILKINS
THE SPIRIT OF THE ROAD
There are roads that get you somewhere, and there are roads that assess whether you deserve to arrive. In Pakistan’ s far north, where the Karakoram, Himalaya, and Hindu Kush knot into an almost mythological geography, you don’ t ride roads so much as survive them. They are precarious, narrow things, scratched into cliff faces by the stubbornness of people rather than the hand of the state.
On a motorcycle, those roads change meaning. They are no longer“ routes” or“ highways.” They are shifting, living entities that demand attention, humility, and no small measure of faith. They are also haunted by legends, by saints, mystics, and shrines that break the monotony of stone and dust, offering not just spiritual protection but a reminder of how deeply belief and community are woven into the road itself.
I had come to Pakistan to ride these back roads, to lean into the dust and the noise, to push myself across the Karakoram Highway and beyond it into the valleys of Shigar, Chapursan, and Shimshal. What I found was not just a test of clutch control and nerve, but a meditation on resilience, of people, of machines, of spirit.
The Karakoram Highway( KKH) is both an engineering marvel and a cautionary tale. Carved in the 1960s and’ 70s by Chinese and Pakistani workers, it connects Islamabad with Kashgar, China, threading along the Indus and Hunza Rivers through mountains that don’ t seem to want company. Officially, it’ s a“ highway.” On two wheels, it feels more like a living myth.
Riding north from Gilgit, the road swings in long arcs along the Hunza River. Trucks decorated with entire gardens of paintwork lumber along, horns blasting, each one a kaleidoscope of peacocks, verses
TRAVERSE 119