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2-day Tour to Karakul Lake & Tashkurgan

Activities: This tour will be conducted on the world famous Karakorum Highway on Pamir Plateau. You will experience the natural beauty of Kunlun Mountain, and the culture and custom of the Kirgiz and Tajik people who are living on Pamir Plateau. Also you will follow in the footsteps of caravans who travelled on the Karakorum Highway.

Day 1

Place & Transport:Kashgar to Karakul Lake to Tashkurgan

Day’s Activities:Karakoram Highway, Opal village, Red Mountain, Corner Lake & Sand Mountain, MT. Muztagh Ata (7546m) & MT.Konger (7719m), Karakul Lake.

  • Karakoram Highway
  • Corner Lake
  • Mt. Muztagh Ata
  • Karakul Lake








Place to stay: Tashkurgan

Today we take a drive on Karakurum highway, renowned as the highest paved border crossing in the World and regarded as one of the World’s most beautiful highways). We will see the following on our drive: Opal village is a 1 hour drive from Kashgar. It is a good location to take photos of village life and traditional activities like bread making and Uyghur food stalls. Half an hour drive from the village we will arrive in Oytagh Red Mountain. The mountain valley is surrounded by a beautiful backdrop of multi-coloured mountains topped by snowcapped peaks. Corner Lake (Bulung Kul) is a tranquil shallow lake where you can take very nice photographs of the lake with stunning reflections of the sand mountains. Karakul Lake is 3600 meters above sea level. It is located between Mt. Muztagata  (7546 meters) and Mt. Gonger (7719 meters), which are said to be 2 of the 6 most beautiful mountains in the World. We will visit the local Kyrgyz Yurts and listen to their stories about traditional ways of nomadic mountain life.

Picnic lunch: We will then enjoy our picnic lunch of fruits and fresh bread that we purchased in Opal village in a beautiful picnic spot overlooking the Karakul Lake. We will take 1.5 hours drive from Karakul lake to Tashkorgan. It Tashkurgan is an interesting small town located on the Pamir Plateau.  This area was extremely isolated until the rebuilding of the Karakurum highway in 1987 and even today the local community still lives in a very traditional fashion with only a single road reaching here from Kashgar, so it has retained a certain uniqueness. This region is commonly known as the main road of the “old Silk Road” the main route leading from China to West Asia. The average elevation is 4000 meters.

 

Day 2

Place & Transport:Tashkurgan to Kashgar (300Km)

Day’s Activities: Tashkurgan, Stone fort, Tashkurgan grassland, Subash pass

  • Tashkorgan Stone City
  • Tashkorgan Grassland








Place to stay: Kashgar

After breakfast we will visit the Stone fort, located in downtown Tashkurgan. It has a history of more than 2000 years. In times gone by it was the central palace of the Tajik kingdom. Then we will hike around the Tashkurgan grassland and enjoy the scenery of Mt. Mutztah Ata and Mt. Pamir. We take the Karakurum Highway back to Kashgar and arrive in the late afternoon.

Note: Guests will need to carry their passports on this tour as they will be required to show these at the Gaz check point (around an hour after the colorful mountain on the first day and also on the way back to Kashgar).  Everybody at this point needs to be registered by the authorities due to its close proximity to many bordering countries. It is also advisable to bring warm clothes as temperatures can be colder than those found in Kashgar at the higher altitudes.