Life From Gilgit (Pakistan) to Kashgar (China) in the Mid-1980s Through Amazing Photos

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The Karakoram Highway or the China-Pakistan Friendship Highway is a 1,300 km (810 mi) national highway which extends from Hasan Abdal in the Punjab province of Pakistan to the Khunjerab Pass in Gilgit-Baltistan, where it crosses into China and becomes China National Highway 314.

Karakoram Highway in September 1986

The highway connects the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa plus Gilgit-Baltistan with China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is a popular tourist attraction and is one of the highest paved roads in the world, passing through the Karakoram mountain range, at 36°51′00″N 75°25′40″E at maximum elevation of 4,714 m (15,466 ft) near Khunjerab pass.

Due to its high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed, it is often referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. The highway is also a part of the Asian Highway AH4.

Here below is a set of wonderful photos that shows a road trip of John Jackson through Karakoram Highway in September 1986 from Gilgit in Northern Pakistan, to Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.

Shopkeeper in Gilgit or further north in Gulmit, northern Pakistan

Near Sust, Northern Pakistan. We stopped for fuel, and this man was on foot, carrying his stuff in a bindle

Sust, Northern Pakistan. About an hour from the actual border crossing to China in the Khunjerab Pass

Sust, Northern Pakistan. Travellers keep warm while waiting at the customs and immigration post about an hour from the Chinese border at Khunjerab Pass