We wake up at 5:00am and find Islamabad under the rain. What a change after the latest days’ hot weather! Now we are afraid for our flight which could bring us to Skardu, the very first stop in our long journey towards Baltoro. Our fearing is however wiped away when we arrive at the airport: it seems that the weather is fair enough to let us land without troubles; within a few hours we complete the latest preparations and leave.
The view from the airplane is breathtaking. Indus river excites us during our flight; we are leaving the Potwar plateau, hosting the capital town on the edge of Himalaya, and will enter the Baltistan region, to the northernmost region of the Country, heading towards Skardu, the very “gateway of Karakorum”.
The flight is short, and nontheless is challenging for our impatience. I’m thinking about how much is different our situation from the adventure of the Duke of Abruzzi one hundred years ago: we’ve found ourselves champing at the bit just less than a week spent in Islamabad for our latest preparations, and with a single leap we covered the same path that a century ago took more than three months of hard travelling. We really have no reason to complain…
We hardly get off the plain, and we’re at work, looking for the same point of view Massimo Terzano choosed to get a fantastic wide shoot during the italian expedition in 1929; tha same point Vittorio Sella used in the historic expedition of 1909 for his memorable images.
Tomorrow we’ll leave for a one-day jeep travel to Askole, the latest civilized outpost we’ll meet during our journey to the Baltoro region.