Rahim Yar Khan → Islamabad · 19 October 2026 · 6:07 AM

Mountains All Around and the Sky Opening Above: The Feeling of Reaching Islamabad After the Long Night Journey

Mountains on every side, the morning sky opening above them, and the tiredness of a whole night on the road disappearing in a single view.

There is a moment on every long night journey when the journey stops being something you are enduring and starts being something you are feeling — and on our road from Rahim Yar Khan to Islamabad, that moment arrived at 6:07 in the morning on 19 October 2026. The mountains were suddenly all around us, on every side of the motorway, and above them the morning sky was opening wide, gold and pale blue, as if the whole world had decided to lift its roof at once. After a whole night on the road, this was the moment the tiredness disappeared. Islamabad was near now, and its hills were standing there to welcome us. Some arrivals you feel in your heart before you see the city, and this is one of them.

Watch the moment the mountains appeared on every side and the morning sky opened above the M2 Motorway — the first welcome of Islamabad after the long night journey from Rahim Yar Khan.

Mountains on every side and the morning sky opening above them — the motorway winding between the green ridges on the road to Islamabad at dawn. AI-generated illustration for this article.

1. The Moment the Tiredness Disappeared

Ask anyone who has driven through the night what the hardest hour is, and they will not say midnight. Midnight still has energy in it — the excitement of the departure, the lights of the towns sliding past, the conversation still fresh. The hardest hour is the one just before dawn, when the body has used up its patience and the road has used up its surprises. Your eyes are heavy, your shoulders ache, and every kilometre feels twice as long as the one before it. That was where we were, somewhere past Bhera, in the grey first light of the morning, with the whole long road from Rahim Yar Khan behind us and the capital still ahead.

And then, in the space of a few minutes, everything changed. The first mountains had appeared on the horizon at 6:04, pale and far away, like a rumour of hills. Two minutes later, at 6:06, they had grown closer — layer upon layer of them, wrapped in morning mist, green fields rushing past the window in the foreground. And then, at 6:07, the road turned a corner and the view opened up completely: mountains on every side, and above them a sky that seemed to have opened its doors.

It is hard to explain to someone who has not felt it, but the tiredness did not fade slowly. It left. One minute we were travellers holding ourselves together with willpower and the last of the night’s energy; the next minute we were wide awake, pointing out of the windows, talking over each other, suddenly full of a morning energy that had no business being there after a night without sleep. The mountains had done it. The sky had done it. The arrival had begun in our hearts before the city itself was anywhere in sight.

That is the strange arithmetic of a night journey. You trade your sleep for distance, and for hours there is nothing to show for the bargain but dark roads and headlights and the quiet hum of the engine. Then the dawn pays you back all at once, in a single view, and suddenly the whole night feels like a fair price. This video — forty-nine seconds of mountains and open sky, filmed from the moving vehicle at 6:07 in the morning — is our attempt to hold on to that repayment.

“Mountains on every side and the morning sky opening above them. After a whole night on the road from Rahim Yar Khan, this is the moment the tiredness disappears — Islamabad is near now, and its hills are standing there to welcome you.”

2. What “Mountains All Around” Actually Looks Like

The phrase is easy to say and easy to picture wrongly. Mountains all around does not mean one great peak standing in front of you like a postcard. It means something quieter and far more powerful: the road has stopped running across flat country and has started running between heights, so that whichever window you look out of, there is a slope rising.

On the left, the ridges climb in long green shoulders, one behind another, their tops catching the first gold of the sun while their valleys still hold the grey of the night. On the right, the same thing in reverse — slopes falling away into mist, then rising again to a further ridge, pale blue-grey against the sky. Ahead, the motorway itself climbs in a long curve, and beyond the curve there are more ridges, and beyond those, more still. The world has grown a third dimension in every direction at once, and the flat plains of the night feel like a memory from another journey entirely.

These are the foothills of the Salt Range, the long spine of hills that the motorway climbs on its way from the Punjab plains towards Islamabad. They are not the great snow peaks of the far north, and they do not need to be. Their beauty is a quieter kind: green slopes, long ridges, deep valleys, and the sense that the land itself is rising to meet you. At this hour, with the mist still sitting in the low places and the sun still low enough to paint the ridge tops gold, the whole range looks like a landscape that has been drawn in layers — each ridge a little lighter than the one before it, until the farthest heights melt into the pale morning sky.

The road between the heights

There is something about a road that runs between mountains that changes the way you travel on it. On the flat motorway of the night, the road was a straight line and the journey was a matter of endurance — hold your speed, hold your lane, hold your patience. Between the mountains, the road bends and climbs, and the journey becomes a matter of attention. Every curve opens a new view. Every climb shows you a valley you had not seen a minute ago. The driver slows without thinking about it, not from caution alone but from the simple fact that the road has become worth looking at.

That is why the video from this moment feels so different from the videos of the night before. The night videos are dark, quiet, and still — a level crossing, a fuel station, a long bridge over a river you can barely see. This one is full of movement and light: the road curving, the ridges sliding past, the sky changing colour by the minute. The journey has changed its character completely, from a night drive into a mountain drive, and you can feel the change in every second of the footage.

3. The Sky Opening Above

If the mountains are the walls of this part of the journey, then the sky is its roof — and at 6:07 in the morning, that roof was opening. After hours under a dark sky that had pressed close and low over the flat plains, the morning sky above the ridges felt enormous. It was not just brighter; it was bigger. The clouds had broken into wide, soft bands of gold and pale blue, the sun was climbing behind the eastern ridges, and the whole dome of the sky seemed to have lifted itself up and stepped back to make room for the day.

There is a reason travellers remember the sky on a mountain morning. On flat ground, the sky is something you glance at. Between mountains, it is something you live inside. The ridges frame it on every side, so the patch of sky above the road feels like a window cut into the world, and when that window opens in gold and blue after a night of darkness, the effect is almost physical — your chest loosens, your breathing deepens, and the whole vehicle seems to sit a little lighter on the road.

The light itself was doing beautiful work. At this hour the sun is still low, and its light comes across the land almost sideways, catching the upper edges of the ridges while the valleys stay in soft shadow. That low light is what makes every layer of mountain stand out from the one behind it: the nearest ridge dark and green, the next one softer, the farthest one a pale shape dissolving into the mist. The mist, still hanging in the low places, caught the gold of the sun and turned the valleys into slow rivers of light. It is the kind of light that photographers chase and travellers remember for years, and it lasted only minutes before the sun climbed higher and the day turned ordinary again.

That is the honest truth about dawn on this road: it is brief. The sky does not stay open like that for long. By seven o’clock the mist will have burned off, the ridges will have settled into their ordinary daytime colours, and the magic will have thinned into plain daylight. But the feeling it leaves behind does not thin at all. Hours later, deep into the day in Islamabad, you will still be carrying that first open sky with you, and every time you think back to the journey, it will be 6:07 in the morning again, with the mountains all around and the sky opening above them.

The high mountain road climbing between the ridges as the morning sun breaks through the mist — the sky opening above the Salt Range on the way to Islamabad. AI-generated illustration for this article.

4. The Night Behind Us

No moment on a journey stands alone, and this one is no exception. To understand why the mountains and the open sky mattered so much at seven minutes past six, you have to remember the night that came before them.

It began at a lonely level crossing outside Rahim Yar Khan, where the gates were down, the road was empty, and the watchman’s house stood dark beside the silent tracks — a scene straight out of a horror film, waiting in the still night for a long freight train to rumble through. It continued at a quiet motorway fuel station at one in the morning, with fuel, fresh air and a short break under the bright canopy lights. Then back on the M4 in the dark, overtaking a bus and crossing the great River Ravi on its long bridge, the night drive in full flow.

By dawn we were leaving the Bhera rest area, crossing the River Jhelum on the M2 with the early fog still hanging over the water and the fields. And then, at 6:04, the first mountains appeared on the horizon — the hills that welcome you to Islamabad. At 6:06 they had grown closer, layer upon layer of mist-wrapped ridges. And at 6:07, this: mountains on every side and the sky opening above them, the tiredness gone, the capital near, and the whole night of driving suddenly worth it.

That is why the caption for today’s video says that some arrivals you feel in your heart before you see the city. Islamabad was still kilometres away. There was no signboard, no skyline, no first glimpse of a tower or a minaret. What there was, instead, was a feeling — the feeling that the journey had turned a corner, that the flat dark road had done its job and handed us over to the hills, and that the city we had driven all night to reach was now close enough to be felt rather than seen. The mountains were its messengers, and the open sky was its welcome.

Level crossing — night1 AM fuel stopRiver Ravi — M4Bhera rest areaRiver Jhelum — M2First mountains — 6:04 AMCloser ridges — 6:06 AMMountains all around — 6:07 AM

5. Why This Stretch of the Motorway Feels Different

Every road has a stretch that travellers remember, and on the motorway from the Punjab plains to Islamabad, this is one of them. It is the stretch where the road stops being a highway and starts being a mountain pass — where the flat, straight, fast driving of the night gives way to curves and climbs, to ridges on both sides and valleys dropping away below.

Part of the difference is the climbing itself. On this stretch the motorway rises steadily, and with every kilometre you can feel yourself gaining height — the plains falling away below, the air turning cooler, the views opening wider with every bend. After a night of flat driving, that climb is the moment the journey truly becomes a mountain journey. Your ears may even pop a little. Your body notices the change before your eyes do, and then your eyes catch up and there are mountains everywhere.

Part of the difference is the famous zigzag that lies just ahead — the stretch where the road winds between the mountains in curve after curve, climbing higher and higher above sea level towards the capital. Today’s video is the moment just before that zigzag begins, the moment when the road first shows you what it is about to become. Tomorrow’s journey will take us up through those curves, past Kallar Kahar and its steep climbs and cool air, and on towards the Margalla Hills themselves. But today, right here, the road was simply telling us: the mountains have you now, and they will not let you go until Islamabad.

And part of the difference is the simplest thing of all: the company. On the flat motorway at night, the journey was ours alone — our headlights, our lane, our thoughts. Between the mountains, the journey suddenly has company: the ridges on the left, the ridges on the right, the mist in the valleys, the sun on the ridge tops, the sky opening above. You are no longer driving through an empty landscape. You are travelling through a place that is paying attention to you, and it changes the whole feeling of the road.

A traveller’s note: if you ever drive this stretch at dawn, do not rush the first half hour of light. The mist changes every few minutes — a ridge that is hidden at 6:05 can be clear at 6:15, and the colours shift from grey to gold as the sun climbs. The best views on the road to Islamabad are often the ones you catch between one ridge and the next.

6. If You Drive This Road at Dawn

For anyone planning the same road — Rahim Yar Khan to Islamabad, overnight, by motorway — this morning carries a few practical lessons that are worth writing down before the memory fades.

Leave in time to meet the dawn on the hills, not on the plains. The stretch from Bhera towards the Salt Range is at its best in the first hour of light. Time your fuel and rest stops the night before so that the dawn finds you climbing between the ridges, not still crossing flat country in the dark.
Let the passenger take the photographs and the video. The views change every minute at this hour, and the driver’s eyes belong on the road — especially on the curves and climbs ahead. The best footage from a moving vehicle is taken by the person who is free to watch the mountains, not the one watching the traffic.
Expect mist, and welcome it. The morning mist on this road is not bad weather — it is the weather that makes the mountains beautiful. It softens the far ridges, lights the near ones, and turns an ordinary drive into a moving picture. The sky opening above the mist is the view you will remember longest.
Stop only where it is safe. The motorway’s rest areas are the right places to pause and look properly. Never stop on the carriageway or the hard shoulder for a photograph; the view will still be there from the next rest area, and the road will still be there tomorrow.
Keep your fuel and your energy in hand. The mountain stretch ahead is beautiful, but it is also a climb, and the zigzag beyond it climbs higher still. A full tank, a rested driver and a short break at Bhera make the difference between enjoying the hills and merely enduring them.
Watch for the moment the tiredness lifts. It will come suddenly, as it came to us at 6:07 — not gradually, but all at once, when the mountains close in around you and the sky opens above. When it comes, let yourself feel it. That lift is the dawn paying you back for the night, and it is the best part of the whole journey.

Above all, remember what this morning is really saying: the journey is the destination’s first chapter, not its waiting room. The night at the level crossing, the one o’clock fuel stop, the rivers crossed in the dark, the first mountains at 6:04, the closer ridges at 6:06 and the mountains all around at 6:07 — each of them is part of the story, and the story is richer for all of them. Islamabad was waiting at the end of the road, but the road itself had already given us the morning.

So here is the view, exactly as we felt it: mountains on every side, the morning sky opening above them, and the tiredness of a whole night disappearing in a single moment. The whole night of driving, worth it for this one view. And the best of the road — the zigzag climb, Kallar Kahar, the high mountain motorway, and the capital itself — still to come.

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