The Throne Room of Mountain Gods.

[American Eagle]

Thanks for sharing yours and others photos. Two years of Geology as my elective natural science in undergraduate college causes me to note in particularly some pictures showing glacial scarf. I would assume some of that debris has been carbon or other dated and would perhaps be upwards of 400 million years old. The glacial melt streams, I wonder how much over the years of your and my lifetime, how much of the glaciers in your photos have melted or receded and what measurable impact on hydro power and irrigated farming these streams amount to?

 

[SQ8]

Thanks for sharing yours and others photos. Two years of Geology as my elective natural science in undergraduate college causes me to note in particularly some pictures showing glacial scarf. I would assume some of that debris has been carbon or other dated and would perhaps be upwards of 400 million years old. The glacial melt streams, I wonder how much over the years of your and my lifetime, how much of the glaciers in your photos have melted or receded and what measurable impact on hydro power and irrigated farming these streams amount to?

Not related to your post, but essentially on the topic; I suppose you may have a chance to visit some of these places during your tenure in Pakistan? Although I suppose the publicity these places received then was much less as compared to now?

 

[American Eagle]

Not related to your post, but essentially on the topic; I suppose you may have a chance to visit some of these places during your tenure in Pakistan? Although I suppose the publicity these places received then was much less as compared to now?

During my tenure in Pakistan I visited that I can recall since returning to the US June of 1965:

1. Peshawar and Badabur, my higher HQ from my posting at the US Embassy then in Karachi.
2. Karachi, where I lived and was posted in support of our USAF base in Peshawar/Badabur.
3. The Khyber Pass and the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
4. Rawalpindi
5. Lahore
6. Quetta
7. Ruins of ancient city of Mohenjo-daro (Sindh) up country at a large land fault in the desert where we jumped from a tall water fall into the (I think) Indus River below as part of our swimming there during site seeing, etc.
8. The beach at Somniani, Balochistan
9. The Rann of Kutch, East of the Indus River Delta and Karachi, in January, 1965, to the ill demarcated border with India, as this is where my hunting party (I was a guest of Masood Khan and his first cousin Aftab (?) Khan, who was then a young Pakistan Foreign Office diplomatic corp official (during his long Pakistan Foreign Officer Career Aftab (?) Khan became the career Pak Foreign Office Ambassador to then Communist Poland.
***I was wounded in the Rann of Kutch when an Indian tank shell hit a Pakistani flat bed truck carrying scrap metal which "blew" the oncoming Pakistani scrap metal truck into our PIA Land Rover truck with the Pakistani flag painted on hood (bonnet). I and the the two Khan cousins were seat on a loose long wooden bench), the driver
of our truck and our hunt bearer/beaters were the across the front seat together with the driver. All in our PIA Land Rover truck were seriously injured, I think a least one poor man in the front seat was killed. A good Samaritan Pakistani passed us by shortly after the wreck (headed AWAY from the source of the Indian tank fire) driving
a one camel pulled flat bed with old rubber tires stuffed with dung. He collected me and the two Khan cousins a from the desert floor where we landed when the wreck
threw us into the air from the PIA Land Rover truck (scrap truck blown into our
Land Rover, which impact threw the three of us seated in the back on long wooden
bench into the air. The Good Samaritan driver of the one camel power flag wagon
took us "slowly" to the closest hospital, the Seven Day Adventist Hospital, in the edge of Karachi, where we got initial treatment. I was seen by our USMAAG doctor the next day at our MAAG quarters in P.E.C.H.S.. *Due to me first flying through the air and hitting left side of my head on back of front seat/and/or on metal wall there for Canvas top support then landing on the desert floor on the right hand side of my head, I of course suffered concussions on both sides/spheres of my brain. The scary part
was having lost my sight but not my hearing when I landed on the right hand side of my
head. "Some time" elapsed before my vision returned. It was a relief to see again!

10. At the beach we explored inland part of the Indus River and the Hub River.

11. I am unsure from memory if I did Taxila in NW Pakistan. "Rusty" memory. If I did go there it was with other officers from our USAF base at Badabur as our starting point.

I have to meet business friends for lunch now. If I can scratch myh 74 year old memory and come up with more places I will amend this reply at a later date.

Thanks for asking. To be clear, I was a Member of the Karatouram (sp?) Mountain Climbing Club but did no climbing. Was also a Member of the Karachi Yacht Club and learned to sail an became a competitive dingy then fixed keel "Tom Tit" class sailing boats.

 

[American Eagle]

During my tenure in Pakistan I visited that I can recall since returning to the US June of 1965:

1. Peshawar and Badabur, my higher HQ from my posting at the US Embassy then in Karachi.
2. Karachi, where I lived and was posted in support of our USAF base in Peshawar/Badabur.
3. The Khyber Pass and the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
4. Rawalpindi
5. Lahore
6. Quetta
7. Ruins of ancient city of Mohenjo-daro (Sindh) up country at a large land fault in the desert. tc.
8. The beach at Somniani, Balochistan
9. The Rann of Kutch, East of the Indus River Delta and Karachi, in January, 1965, to the ill demarcated border with India, as this is where my hunting party (I was a guest of Masood Khan and his first cousin Aftab (?) Khan, who was then a young Pakistan Foreign Office diplomatic corp official (during his long Pakistan Foreign Officer Career Aftab (?) Khan became the career Pak Foreign Office Ambassador to then Communist Poland.
***I was wounded in the Rann of Kutch when an Indian tank shell hit a Pakistani flat bed truck carrying scrap metal which "blew" the oncoming Pakistani scrap metal truck into our PIA Land Rover truck with the Pakistani flag painted on hood (bonnet). I and the the two Khan cousins were seat on a loose long wooden bench), the driver
of our truck and our hunt bearer/beaters were the across the front seat together with the driver. All in our PIA Land Rover truck were seriously injured, I think a least one poor man in the front seat was killed. A good Samaritan Pakistani passed us by shortly after the wreck (headed AWAY from the source of the Indian tank fire) driving
a one camel pulled flat bed with old rubber tires stuffed with dung. He collected me and the two Khan cousins a from the desert floor where we landed when the wreck
threw us into the air from the PIA Land Rover truck (scrap truck blown into our
Land Rover, which impact threw the three of us seated in the back on long wooden
bench into the air. The Good Samaritan driver of the one camel power flag wagon
took us "slowly" to the closest hospital, the Seven Day Adventist Hospital, in the edge of Karachi, where we got initial treatment. I was seen by our USMAAG doctor the next day at our MAAG quarters in P.E.C.H.S.. *Due to me first flying through the air and hitting left side of my head on back of front seat/and/or on metal wall there for Canvas top support then landing on the desert floor on the right hand side of my head, I of course suffered concussions on both sides/spheres of my brain. The scary part
was having lost my sight but not my hearing when I landed on the right hand side of my
head. "Some time" elapsed before my vision returned. It was a relief to see again!

10. At the beach we explored inland part of the Indus River and the Hub River.

11. I am unsure from memory if I did Taxila in NW Pakistan. "Rusty" memory. If I did go there it was with other officers from our USAF base at Badabur as our starting point.

I have to meet business friends for lunch now. If I can scratch myh 74 year old memory and come up with more places I will amend this reply at a later date.

Thanks for asking. To be clear, I was a Member of the Karatouram (sp?) Mountain Climbing Club but did no climbing. Was also a Member of the Karachi Yacht Club and learned to sail an became a competitive dingy then fixed keel "Tom Tit" class sailing boats.

11. I omitted the ancient city/site of Thatta as a place I visited during my 1963-65 USAF tour of duty in Pakistan. My discription of Thatta is where we jumped from a tall water fall into the (I think) Indus River below as part of our swimming there during site seeing.

 

[krash]

Thanks for sharing yours and others photos. Two years of Geology as my elective natural science in undergraduate college causes me to note in particularly some pictures showing glacial scarf. I would assume some of that debris has been carbon or other dated and would perhaps be upwards of 400 million years old.

Excellent thought, I'll research some on it.

The glacial melt streams, I wonder how much over the years of your and my lifetime, how much of the glaciers in your photos have melted or receded and what measurable impact on hydro power and irrigated farming these streams amount to?

I have two reports and a presentation on the glacial retreat in Pakistan buried somewhere. The reports contrasted the earliest photos of the glaciers with the most recent ones and then compared the retreat to that of the central Himalayan and Alpine glaciers. These reports concluded that even though the great glaciers of northern Pakistan have retreated (you can clearly see the loss in heights of the glaciers from the shaved lower slopes of the surrounding mountains) the melt has been considerably less pronounced, at least in some of them, than in the rest of the world. The biggest contributor to this was assumed to be the heavy layer of rock debris that we see on these glaciers which sort of shields it from the elements and retards the melt. In summer time, at places, you can't even see the Baltoro right beneath your feet, all you see are rocks everywhere until you move a few of them and find the massive and very deep glacier underneath. The thick layers of ice and snow in the winters form over this debris and then melts away during the summers spreading the debris more evenly over the glacier.

On the other hand the glaciers without this protective layer in northern Pakistan and the rest of the world haven't been so lucky, e.g. the glacier running down Everest.

I'll try to find the reports again.


Btw are you sure you never visited farther north, say Skardu, Gilgit or Karimabad? Cause the memory you have of the tall mountain seen from Peshawar might have been one of the many other monsters up north that you might have seen from another city and mislead to believe that it was K2. This happens very often, favourite joke of the locals. Two of my friends still believe they saw K2 from Skardu.

 

[American Eagle]

Excellent thought, I'll research some on it.



I have two reports and a presentation on the glacial retreat in Pakistan buried somewhere. The reports contrasted the earliest photos of the glaciers with the most recent ones and then compared the retreat to that of the central Himalayan and Alpine glaciers. These reports concluded that even though the great glaciers of northern Pakistan have retreated (you can clearly see the loss in heights of the glaciers from the shaved lower slopes of the surrounding mountains) the melt has been considerably less pronounced, at least in some of them, than in the rest of the world. The biggest contributor to this was assumed to be the heavy layer of rock debris that we see on these glaciers which sort of shields it from the elements and retards the melt. In summer time, at places, you can't even see the Baltoro right beneath your feet, all you see are rocks everywhere until you move a few of them and find the massive and very deep glacier underneath. The thick layers of ice and snow in the winters form over this debris and then melts away during the summers spreading the debris more evenly over the glacier.

On the other hand the glaciers without this protective layer in northern Pakistan and the rest of the world haven't been so lucky, e.g. the glacier running down Everest.

I'll try to find the reports again.


Btw are you sure you never visited farther north, say Skardu, Gilgit or Karimabad? Cause the memory you have of the tall mountain seen from Peshawar might have been one of the many other monsters up north that you might have seen from another city and mislead to believe that it was K2. This happens very often, favourite joke of the locals. Two of my friends still believe they saw K2 from Skardu.

The singular tall snow capped mountain I and we all saw frame thru the picture window in our USAF Base at Badabur is what I and we remember.

Thanks for your comments, otherwise. Of course every winter all the rugged mountains everywhere in Pakistan get fresh layers of snow, so the tops or peaks should year to year be pretty much status quo.

However, the lower sides of any mountain(s) will melt and feed the streams into rivers in the warmer season(s).

I have been in the Canadian Rockies and my wife in he Swiss Alps. Even the Canadian Rockies don't hold a candle to the sheer height(s) and ruggedness of our various Pakistan mountains.

Cheers.

 

[sur]

Logo of Paramount Pictures also seems to be K-2.. but from a different angle than most of K2 pictures are from...!!

Original Logo:

-
-

newer logo:

-
-

 

[krash]

Logo of Paramount Pictures also seems to be K-2.. but from a different angle than most of K2 pictures are from...!!

Original Logo:

-
-

newer logo:

-
-

Nah man, I know that some things seem similar to K2 but it's a very different mountain.

Edit:

I googled some info on the logo and that mountain doesn't actually exist. Who knows, maybe the artist was inspired by K2.

 

[ghazi52]

Mitre Peak 6010 m - Concordia Baltoro Trek, Baltistan

 

[krash]

Mitre Peak 6010 m - Concordia Baltoro Trek, Baltistan

Gorgeous shot of the summit

 

[Wanderlust]

awesome @krash . idher tak tourist waisay he nai aa saktay...

next time mujhay bhe poch leina, mein nay bh jana hai..

I have searched far and wide for this video until I finally found the complete series from which I had to cut out this portion. This is the most brilliant video of Concordia that I have ever seen:

Famous peaks in the video:

Chogolisa @ 1:11 (the highest peak in the background).

Masherbrum @ 1:18

Unnamed Trango Tower @ 1:29

The Great Trango Tower @ 1:48 (behind the Unnamed Trango Tower

K2 @ 1:24 (on the left in the background covered in clouds)


This video is taken from the second episode (Mountains) of the first season of the BBC documentary series 'Planet Earth'. In high def it just looks AWESOME!

ofcourse its the best video you or I or anyone could have ever seen.. its david attenborough's

Note: This video was made during the summers.

K2 Pakistan - Trekking to the Throne Room of the Gods - YouTube

One of friends in England, almost begged wild frontiers to hire him, they politely declined..

 

[jawad bashir]

hay assalam o alikum brothers
this post is very informative thanks alot
i m new in lahore can any one plz guide where i buy water proof shoe as i am going for makra peak in 2 days

 

[krash]

awesome @krash . idher tak tourist waisay he nai aa saktay...

next time mujhay bhe poch leina, mein nay bh jana hai..

Haha zaroor, zaroor.

ofcourse its the best video you or I or anyone could have ever seen.. its david attenborough's

Yea he's the best. My shoddy upload attempt ruined the quality on that clip. Try downloading the actual episode, its amazing!

One of friends in England, almost begged wild frontiers to hire him, they politely declined..

Poor guy

hay assalam o alikum brothers
this post is very informative thanks alot
i m new in lahore can any one plz guide where i buy water proof shoe as i am going for makra peak in 2 days

Wsalam.

If you want proper climbing/trekking boots you only have two options in Lahore. 1) Adventure Shop (ph# 0321 4240925). This place is near Chauburji and the guy's name is Javed. 2) Adventure Summit in Garden Town. I've lost their number. Of these two I'd suggest Adventure Shop since they don't rip you off. Adventure Summit on the other hand is a rip off machine with exorbitant prices.

But Makra Peak is not a serious climb and you don't necessarily require the more expensive proper trekking/climbing boots for it. So instead I'd suggest going to an army outlet and buying something like these,

I have used US airforce issued boots almost exactly like these myself on treks many times, they work exceptionally well on easy treks. But I don't know which Pakistani brand is the better one, @DESERT FIGHTER might be able to help you with that.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Haha zaroor, zaroor.




Yea he's the best. My shoddy upload attempt ruined the quality on that clip. Try downloading the actual episode, its amazing!



Poor guy




Wsalam.

If you want proper climbing/trekking boots you only have two options in Lahore. 1) Adventure Shop (ph# 0321 4240925). This place is near Chauburji and the guy's name is Javed. 2) Adventure Summit in Garden Town. I've lost their number. Of these two I'd suggest Adventure Shop since they don't rip you off. Adventure Summit on the other hand is a rip off machine with exorbitant prices.

But Makra Peak is not a serious climb and you don't necessarily require the more expensive proper trekking/climbing boots for it. So instead I'd suggest going to an army outlet and buying the DMS shoes available there. I have used US airforce issued DMSes myself on treks many times, they work exceptionally well on these easy treks. But I don't know which Pakistani brand is the better one, @DESERT FIGHTER might be able to help you with that.

Askari Shoes are manufacturing new combat boots.. Not sure if they are available for general public though...

 

[Wanderlust]

Haha zaroor, zaroor.




Yea he's the best. My shoddy upload attempt ruined the quality on that clip. Try downloading the actual episode, its amazing!



Poor guy

I am serious.. if you are comfortable with it, we can look forward and plan maybe..

Yes I have seen the original, I probably have seen alot of david's documentaries.. in these holidays I am going to catch up with Bear Grylls's program.

Askari Shoes are manufacturing new combat boots.. Not sure if they are available for general public though...

if they have an outlet in cantt, then anyone can buy it ofcourse its better not to without knowing someone...