Travelling on the 2nd Most Deadly Road in the World

The journey back: twelve hours down the Karakoram Highway from Hunza Valley to Islamabad with Mac, leaving Akram and the northern crew behind at the point where the 4x4 gets swapped for an ordinary car.

The road’s actual hazard is on display twice in one afternoon. They reach a closure minutes before a controlled blast — the road is deliberately blown to bring loose rock down — and get through on a wait that would otherwise have been two hours. A landslide stops them again shortly after, for five minutes.

The other half of the video is a debrief. Asked for their best moment of the trip, Mac picks Attabad Lake and gives the reason carefully: a disaster that buried villages and, over eleven years, became the thing that supports the local economy. Harry picks the previous night’s music.

Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles. The “second deadliest road in the world” is the video’s own framing and is not sourced in it; recorded as Harry’s claim.

Key moments

• [00:00] The Passu cones and a glacier above them on the way out.
• [00:30] −10°C, and no running water for two days in Hunza because of it — he has not washed his face and says so.
• [02:02] The chai correction he has been getting in the comments: chai tea is saying tea twice. He takes it.
• [02:34] The 4x4 is swapped for a normal car now the rough terrain is behind them, and a new driver takes over. Goodbyes to the northern guides.
• [03:09] His summary of Hunza on leaving: hospitality second to none, the best food in Pakistan, and views he never got tired of.
• [03:39] Twelve hours to Islamabad, he hopes — if we don’t have any police escorts.
• [03:39] The Rakaposhi viewpoint, with an I love Pakistan sign and the second-longest zipline in Pakistan, which he never manages to find.
• [04:44] The guide’s timing advice, and it beats Harry’s own: summer has the best weather but the crowds; come in spring or autumn for decent weather and no queue.
• [05:14] A point where three mountain ranges meet.
• [06:51] Getting warmer and greener heading south, and a river the same turquoise as everything else up north.
• [07:21] Hot springs at the roadside, said to help joint pain after about twenty minutes in the water. Harry flags it explicitly: this is not me saying that.
• [07:51] The blasting. Loose rock is brought down deliberately, and the road closes for it. They get through at the last moment; the alternative was a two-hour minimum wait.
• [08:21] A landslide stop immediately after — five minutes, against the hours he was braced for.
• [09:24] A roadside stop he calls the Pakistani version of a service station: small shops, food, chai.
• [11:12] Mac’s best moment of the trip: Attabad Lake — a natural disaster that buried villages and then, over about eleven years, built the local economy, with hotels still going up. He is careful to hold both halves of that.
• [12:44] Harry’s: the music night in the village studio, and the people in the room.
• [13:16] Arriving very late at a hotel they are told is the best in Pakistan — the contrast with days of no heating and no wi-fi is the point.
• [14:17] The end of the drive: stars the whole way because there is no light pollution, and a back in real pain.

Extracted pages

• Karakoram Highway
• Hunza Valley
• Attabad Lake
• Islamabad
• Pakistan
• Mac
• Akram
• Travel in the off season