Lively Dead End Greetings!

For the past week, I was at the end of another dead-end road in northern Pakistan. Yet, with the exception one (Kunjerab Pass), all these so-called dead ends I have gone to have been very much alive.

The latest dead-end road took me to a village called Hushe, which sits right at the base of 25,659′ Masherbrum. Hushe is also the closest point you can drive to K2, the 2nd highest peak in the world.

A couple of days ago I came south to the town of Khaplu, a place with the luxuries of both internet and electricity, at least for much of each day (after all, I’m in Pakistan, where there doesn’t appear to be reliable power anywhere). The lack of internet is actually somewhat of a treat to me, but no electricity at high elevations in November equates to long, cold, dark nights, so I’m happy to now have some power. Locals living in the high mountain villages have yak shit fires to cook and heat their homes with, but the guest houses I stay in generally do not, no doubt because they usually do not have guests from the outside so late in the season. In fact, I’ve been the only outsider pretty much everywhere I’ve been.

One of the things I’ve been asked by friends is whether I see other western travelers in the remote areas of Pakistan. Amazingly, during these five months of travels, the only American I’ve seen anywhere was the American friend I visited in Slovenia. As far as Europeans, I’ve encountered less than a dozen since arriving in Asia, and only two of them were off the beaten path.

Something else I get asked is when and why did I start exploring on my own. No doubt it’s something in my DNA, but in a more easily identifiable sense it began when I was 16 years old. In 1972, I went to Brazil for one year, as a Rotary Exchange Student. Tellingly, I did not spend much of that year inside a classroom, but became an ardent student of life, allowing my insatiable curiosity to lead me wherever it pulled strongest, something that has continued unabated throughout my life. Exploring life alone so much of the time, including the physical adventures, has been the simple result of not wanting to wait to find someone who is compatible to explore together. I’d love to have a freedom-loving life partner to explore everything with, but I’m content to know that’s something that will happen whenever it happens. It was in Brazil 50 years ago that I realized timing is everything, that life does not wait. So, here I am, physically alone much of the time, but happily and consciously connected to everyone and everything, amazed by all I experience.

Here are links to the latest photo galleries, show-casing earlier dead ends:

suspension https://balloonbill.smugmug.com/Other/Maximum-Suspension/

visit with a friend https://balloonbill.smugmug.com/Other/Chapursen-Valley/

sacrifice ( open at your own risk) https://balloonbill.smugmug.com/Other/Supreme-Sacrifice/