The Junction of the Three Mightiest Mountain Ranges

The place where the Himalayas, the Karakorams and the Hindu Kush Meet

It is a small, inconspicuous village, about 40 km from Gilgit, which would have remained as such, if not the geographical specificity of the place would have been considered. This point is where the mighty Indus meets the Gilgit in Gilgit Baltistan, as the region is now called. This place is considered to be the meeting point of the three most powerful mountain ranges in the world, the Himalayas, home to 9 of the 10 highest peaks in the world, including the highest mountain. Everest, the rugged Karakoram, home to the K2, and the third from the northwest, the Hindu Kush, which leads to Tirich Mir, the highest peak outside the Himalayan Karakoram Range (7708m). You can get great experiance with Hitch A Hike that provide Domestic Tour Packages and have various plans of trip to northern areas of Pakistan.

One of the most frequently asked questions is that the Karakoram is a sub-region of the Himalayas. The answer is both no and yes and depends on how you want to answer. It is purely scientifically to different areas, but they are part of the same mountain complex and are referred to as the Great Himalayas.

Paleomagnetic signs indicate that this depression has resulted in an intracontinental shortening of about 2000 km. The expression of this shortening is the raising of the gneiss in the middle of the crust in the Karakorum in a late-tertiary recoil, the folding of the Paleogene red beds in Tibet, the southward Schubimbrikation the foreland and the shelf of the Indian plate, the northward recoil. Collisions along the Indus seam zone, expansion and elevation of the thickened Tibet after the Miocene, causing NS expansion errors and strike slip faults that allowed the Tibetan fault blocks to escape eastward. ”

Let’s get back to simpler things, as the Karakorams are geographically separated by the Indus in its upper reaches of the Himalayas. In Ladakh, however, the division is considered Shyok instead of the Indus. So, if you’re in the Nubra Valley, the mountains on the other side of the Shyok River are the Karakorams and this side of the Himalayas. However, some people cling to the classical Indus division, and according to this standard, the Ladakh series would be part of the Karakorams and not the Himalayas. By the same definition Leh would be in the Karakoram and not in the Himalayas.

However, this ambiguity disappears as soon as the Shyok River fuses with the Indus at a place called Keris near the city of Skardu. The Nubra River also flows into the Shyok in the Nubra Valley, and the river expands considerably. The fact that both rivers make a complete 180 degree reversal from their original sources indicates the presence of fault lines.

The Hindu Kush, however, is separated from the Karakorams by the Gilgit. The Gilgit rises somewhere between the mountains of the Hindu Kush and the Karakorams. It leads through Gilgit Town and finally leads at Jaglot in the Indus. Here finally meet these three powerful areas. Of all the places I would like to visit someday, this would definitely be the top.

If the ancients had been able to understand the meaning of this place (which we now do based on years of research using modern scientific equipment), they would have built some great structures here, as I can imagine. However, there are still local legends about this place, ie where the Indus meets Gilgit (the legend has no relation to the meeting of the three major areas). According to legend, fairies and other such creatures bathe here at midnight or so. You can visit that places with Hitch A Hike at reasonable plans.