Pakistan
Khunjerab Pass
Yaks graze at 4,693 metres where the Karakoram Highway ends at Earth's highest paved border.
The air thins to a whisper at 4,693 metres. Prayer flags snap in a wind that has crossed the Pamir before reaching you. Yaks graze on tundra grass beside a striped border barrier, indifferent to the fact that Pakistan ends here and China begins. The Karakoram Highway — one of civil engineering's most improbable achievements — reaches its highest point and simply stops.
Khunjerab Pass is the highest paved international border crossing on Earth, connecting Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan to China's Xinjiang region via the Karakoram Highway. The pass sits within the Khunjerab National Park, established in 1975 to protect the Marco Polo sheep and snow leopard populations of the upper Karakoram. The road from Sost — the last Pakistani settlement — climbs steadily through increasingly barren terrain, passing glacier tongues and scree fields where marmots whistle from boulder piles. At the pass itself, a simple gate marks the frontier. The surrounding peaks exceed 7,000 metres, and the air holds roughly half the oxygen of sea level. The pass is open only from May to November, snow sealing it for the winter months.
Solo
Standing at the roof of the Karakoram Highway, alone at a border between civilisations — Khunjerab delivers the kind of edge-of-the-world solitude that solo travel is built for.
Couple
The drive from Passu or Sost to the pass unfolds like a slow-motion altitude reel — shared silence at 4,693 metres, with nothing to do except absorb the enormity.
Friends
A road trip to Earth's highest paved border crossing, stopping for yak butter tea and dried apricots along the way — Khunjerab is the kind of destination that earns bragging rights.
- The Karakoram Highway climbs from 2,400 metres at Gilgit to 4,693 metres at the pass — the altitude gain is visible in your breathing within the first hour.
- Marco Polo sheep — among the largest wild sheep in the world with curved horns spanning 1.5 metres — are regularly seen on the slopes near the border.
- The pass is open only from May to November — from December, the road closes entirely and the border with China shuts until spring.
- On the Chinese side, the landscape immediately transitions to the treeless brown steppe of the Karakoram Range — the contrast with Pakistan's granite peaks is total.
Hot yak butter tea and dried apricots from Gojal traders at the last checkpoint before China.
Sost's roadside cafes serve steaming thukpa noodle soup — the warmth you need after 4,693 metres of cold wind.
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