A closer look
Instead of a relaxing mountain getaway, the surveyors of the 1963 Karakoram Highway opted for pure geological violence. Carving a road between Pakistan and China at 15,000 feet meant living in tent camps glued to crumbling cliffs. It fostered an insane travel subculture where avoiding daily avalanches and treating altitude sickness with machismo became the norm. They literally blasted their way through the roof of the world, losing hundreds of workers to create what is essentially a paved death trap.
