Location
Akto County, Kashgar, Xinjiang
The Pamir Plateau, anciently the "Onion Ridges...
The Pamir Plateau, anciently the "Onion Ridges," is the last high terrace the Silk Road crossed into Central Asia. Muztagh Ata, 7,546 meters, wears unmelting ice and snow and is honored as "Father of Ice Mountains"; at its foot, Lake Karakul mirrors the peak whole in its water — mountain and lake together, a romance the Pamir alone possesses. Kyrgyz and Tajik herders have ranged here for generations.
The Han called the Pamir "Congling" — the Onion Ridges — for the scallions growing on its cliffs and slopes. After Zhang Qian "opened the way," caravans from Kashgar crossed the range to reach Dayuan, Kangju and Parthia; Xuanzang returned this way from India. The stone city ruins at Tashkurgan hold the throat of this highland passage; today National Highway 314 climbs the Gez canyon, where the milky blue of White Sand Lake meets the snowline of Kongur Tagh — the grandest stretch of the Karakoram Highway.
Muztagh Ata is rounded, its ridges gentle, glaciers running down its radiating valleys, its reserves of snow and ice so rich that Kyrgyz herders revere it as "Father of Ice Mountains." Lake Karakul at 3,600 meters is a high moraine lake; on windless mornings the twin reflections of Muztagh Ata and Kongur Tiube stand in the water — an image travelers wait all night for. Milk tea in Kyrgyz yurts and the sound of the komuz are the plateau's own footnote.
冰山之父仁且慈，抱湖而眠几万年。 — "The Father of Ice Mountains, kind and gentle, sleeps embracing the lake for tens of thousands of years."—— Modern verse on Muztagh Ata
Its comparatively gentle west slope has made Muztagh Ata a world-famous training ground for 7,000-meter ski mountaineering, with teams of many nations summiting by the traditional route since 1980. Unlike the savagery of K2, it receives climbers with a steady, kindly bearing — "Father of Ice Mountains" is exactly right.