The dangerous roads of Pakistan’s northern areas

SHIMSHAL HUNZA: The jeep bumps along a sloppy mud road carved between Pakistan´s northern mountains, its tyres running with breathtaking precision along the very edge, where nothing but air lies between them and the snake-like river winding hundreds of feet below.

More than 3,000 metres (around 10,000 feet) above sea level the vehicle has no room for error, its other side just inches from scraping along the rock face, its passengers worriedly monitoring how anxious the driver appears.

For his part, Shahid Karim spends as much of his time watching the mountains themselves as he does gauging how close he is bringing his jeep to the edge.

“At every second death is written on this road… This whole area is notorious for landslides,” he says, adding that falling rocks have struck his vehicle many times.

The precarious roads of Pakistan’s mountainous north are lifelines for its scattered and remote population. The thoroughfare Karim is travelling is the only one connecting the 2,400 residents of the village of Shimshal to the outside world.

Drivers like Karim, a native of the region who has been navigating this particular stretch of road since 2004, are the only ones who use them, making a career out of ferrying villagers, tourists, and the handful of Westerners who make the knuckle-whitening journey each year.

They are the ones with the experience to know that landslides are as great a threat as the road´s narrowness and lack of safety barriers.

During spring and autumn, when there is no snow or rain, an ibex walking delicately along the heights can trigger a rockfall, while a strong breeze on a summer´s day can set pebbles sliding away.

The lightest rainfall can shift rocks, while in the frozen winters even sunlight can be dangerous, melting the snow that surrounds boulders and prevents them from raining down on the road.

Sometimes rocks falling from above are less of a danger than those tumbling away beneath the car tyres, loosened by the weight of the vehicle and sent crashing down into the abyss.

The more desperate passengers are for the journey to end, the slower the driver is forced to crawl along the roads.

“We have passengers with us whose lives depend on us,” Karim says. “So it is really important to drive slowly.”