Badakhshan High Route

*page under construction*

This route involves numerous difficult river crossings, passes that involve glacier travel and steep scrambling. It’s possible that this is a swimming and climbing route in addition to being a hiking route.

Why, then, am I leaving this incomplete work online? It’s for others to find through online searches. I occasionally get asked about certain routes, passes, rivers, etc. by hikers. Sometimes I have done the research already and I can give them some valuable information (that I usually get from sources in languages they don’t know and sources they can’t or don’t know how to access). So I’m putting the information below online so that others may find it and make use of it.

This route is a high route. For a description of what that involves in Tajikistan, read this. If that sounds too difficult or dangerous, then check out the easier routes in the Trekking in Tajikistan guidebook, or the future Pamir Trail route through this area.

The Badakhshan High Route

Gear required: crampons, ice ax, river crossing shoes/sandals.

Start: Khorugh (Khorog)

End: Darvoz region (Qalai Khumb)

Length: 370km hand drawn in straight lines. Probably 450km minimum when actually hiked.

In the map below you can see the start and end points. I plan on going south to north in order to do the difficult river crossings in the northern section as late as I can in the season.

The thick brown lines are mountain ranges, or rather long ridges, that need to be traversed. The Pamir Trail sets out to do the same thing. But my planned route will take much, much longer. I plan to fully visit this area with a route that is not exactly the most straightforward.

Historically, locally well-known routes went through the passes across these mountain ranges. But modern roadbuilding on the valley floors and up and down the Panj River caused these routes to be abandoned and mostly forgotten. While the name and location may be remembered, the technical details about the passes have been forgotten or lost. Also, as I learned, the glacier conditions have in some locations changed dramatically.

A very basic outline of the route

I’ll divide this into ridges/ranges that need to be crossed, from south to north. The names of these ranges are Russian cartographical inventions. Locals do not refer to these ranges in this way.

Actual hiked route, 2023

2024:

  • Yazghulom Valley

  • Vakhyo/Darvoz Traverse