Staff Reporter
Islamabad
A British Backpacker Society team has completed a two-week expedition to Concordia and K-2, fuelling hopes that Pakistan’s adventure travel pedigree will once again be recognised in the society’s influential end-of-year international adventure travel rankings.
Last year, the society has ranked Pakistan as a top destination for adventure tourism in its list of the world’s top 20 adventure travel destinations for 2018, which also includes Russia, India, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan and China.
Samuel Joynson, the president of the British Backpacker Society told that he started his journey from Skardu in early August along with Johannes Pelkonen, another member of the society and supporting team from Skardu-based company “Vertical Explorers”. The president said the team trekked for over 200 kilometres at an average altitude of 4000 metres to the base of the world’s second highest mountain, K-2. Their route included walking the length of the Baltoro Glacier, one of the world’s largest non-polar glaciers, and featured temperatures as low as -15’C, he added.
Speaking about his journey, Samuel Joynson said, “For generations, adventurers from around the world have told stories of the natural majesty of the deepest Karakoram and I have long dreamed of seeing this land of superlatives myself. In my experience, no other trek on earth offers visitors such scenic splendour and standing at Concordia, beneath K2 and the otherworldly Gasherbraum mountains – is an experience that no visitor will ever forget.
Samuel added that alongside showcasing some of the world’s finest alpine scenery, the trek also offers visitors a rare and undervalued experience in the modern world – a complete “digital detox.” In an era of relentless email, social media, and phone calls, he said a trek to K2 was unique in as much as the lack of any phone signal on the route which allowed visitors to escape the pressures of the modern world for two weeks.
