In the morning we waited at checkpost belly for the police to make their decision. I went back into town to try and get some fuel for the stoves which we forgot to pick up yesterday. When I got back (no fuel, there were fuel restriction in place a result of the shortage caused by the blocked roads) Finn had been taken by the police with our passports back to Sost to get exit stamps on the passport. He came back about half an hour later without the stamps, the official in town had refused to grant them.
Without the stamps they expected us to give up and go back to Sost, but we were determined to make a decent try at crossing this border anyway so once the police left we cycled up to the blockage in the road north and started carrying our gear over. The guy in the checkpost was surprised at our choice of direction to travel, North further up the road rather than South back to Sost. He ran off to get the police again who arrived as we were halfway finished carrying our gear over the landslide. They just sort of watched us go over, said something about the stamp then left.

 

 
Once on the other side it was wonderful, completely quiet and traffic free road. Not a cloud in the sky, the river running swiftly to our right and the mountains getting ever taller and closer together. Of course we could never actually ride the bikes for more than a kilometre before shale or mud or a big slide blocked the path and we had to push or carry the bikes over.

   
 The hardest part was getting the bikes through the sticky mud which clogged the wheels, stuck to the frame and bags and blocked up the drivetrain. It was like trying to pull the bikes through glue. After twenty minutes we got to the other side of the mud and brought the bikes down to the river to wash them off so they could actually function again.

   

 Even though the going was slow (we were only making about 5km an hour) we were all enjoying the experience immensely. This was one of the few times we had been truly left alone in Pakistan and were now properly able to take in this spectacular land at our own pace.

  
   

 This are is prone to rockslides at all times and the sound of small stones coming loose and tumbling down the rock face echoed throughout the valley from time to time. At one point we found ourselves hit by a strong, cold wind carrying flakes of snow, the ripples of an avalanche further up one of the mountain peaks, and about 10 km ahead we saw the snow in the opposite side of the valley sliding into the river.

 

 
At last we crossed the bridge that indicated we had entered the Karakorum National Park. It took us most of the day to make it this far, even though this point is only 35km from Sost. But we were 35km closer to the Chinese border now, and we held out hope, having come this far, that we could cross it in the next few days.
Our progress came to an abrupt halt when we ran into the remnants of an avalanche of a week or so ago out on the road. It was huge, at least 100m in length and 30m or 40m in height at its tallest. Atop it stood a herd of benevolent yaks, enjoying cool air of the snow. It had brought with it rocks, shale and boulders as it came down but we decided to cross it fresh tomorrow morning, rested and with the snow harder after the cold night. We camped close to the river in a wide meander and, a surprisingly rare occasion on this trip, lit a fire. We were the only ones out in the Karakorum that night and the sky was clear and full of stars.