Rasht to Zarafshon Difficult Routes

This page describes the extremely difficult and/or dangerous routes between the Rasht Valley (Gharm) and the Kuhistoni Mastchoh District (the Upper Zarafshon Valley): The Khojai Muso Pass, Beob Pass, Zamburkhona Gorge and Galaist Gorge. Finally, at the bottom of this page, I describe a prospective long route that does not involve scary river crossings, impassable gorges or dangerous glaciers.

Beob Pass

Beob Pass, a glacier-to-glacier pass, is a rarely used local route to go from Navobod in the Rasht valley to Ghorif and onward to the Zarafshon Valley. The route is obvious on the map, you can reach it from multiple points.

Update: I went through Beob Pass in July 2023. Read my report here.

Khojai Muso Pass

The Khojai Muso Pass itself is easy, but the approach from the Zarafshon valley has two problems: high water river crossings in the hottest part of the summer, and the main problem: you would need to go through a restricted border zone on the Zarafshon side. There is a border post on the Zarafshon side above the village of Dehhisor. They will block you from going along the right bank of the river, and they will see you use the left bank of the river and intercept you (they have a cable car crossing). And if you someone manage to get through this, next is a very rough descent on the south side down a steep forested gorge with no trails and numerous obstacles.

The last account of a full passage of this route is from Vladimir Sazonov a Russian hiker who, in 1982, went over this pass from north to south, despite warnings from local shepherds. He reports a very difficult and unpleasant descent of the gorge to the south, losing his travel companion (?!) in the mountains, then fleeing from a bear and losing his backpack with all his gear, money (3 month’s salary) and passport when he accidentally dropped it in the river. Locals farther down the Sorbogh gorge rescued him and arranged free transportation to Dushanbe where he somehow got on a flight to Moscow without a ticket, money, or (internal Soviet) passport (he called for a money transfer and bribed his way onto a fully booked flight). His lost companion turned out to be alive, but had extreme difficulties finding a route on the descent down the gorge.

Four years later a friend of Vladimir’s named Sergei thought this sounded fun and attempted to repeat this journey. He brought a friend named Vitali whom he promptly fought with. They parted ways in the mountains where Vitali lost a week of time and turned back to the Zarafshon side. Sergei “went down (to) the Duburso (river) through the thickets. He lost his tent and some of his belongings while crossing one of the streams, and arrived in Dushanbe in a completely insane state.“

If you manage to sneak by the border guards you couldn’t do worse than these guys (unless you actually drown).

What has changed since these unfortunate Russian hikers went through is that a road has been built that goes up the Duburso River and then up the Kaftarkhona River, so if you descend from Khojai Muso Pass to the south via the Ulang and Dubusro Rivers, you will come to a coal sorting field at the confluence of these two rivers and a well-maintained mining road to take you the rest of the way towards the Rasht Valley.

In sum: this route is illegal, extremely unpleasant, very difficult, and might kill you.

Zamburkhona Gorge

Shepherds travel from the Zarafshon side over a glacier pass and into the upper Zamburkhona gorge. The lower part of the gorge can be accessed from the Rasht side, as can been seen in this YouTube video. Can the lower and upper gorges be connected on foot? Maybe. It’s hard to tell from satellite imagery. The pass itself doesn’t seem too difficult, and in some satellite images a clear sheep trail can be seen on the glacier. The next challenge is on the north side: avoiding the restricted border zone. If you go down the Shakhisafed gorge to the Zarafshon river, you will put yourself in view of the border post. The solution to this is to look at the passes in the mountains to the south of the Zarafshon River. You can take a direct but high line to the village of Rogh in the Zarafshon valley. You need to go over multiple ridges to get to Rogh (bypassing the border zone along the main river). One option is over the Dihandang-Shakhisafed Pass (a placeholder name, there is no local name) and then down the Dihandang gorge to the Zarafshon river. This may put you outside of the border zone. I don’t know for sure. If you want to be safe, then don’t go down the Dihandang gorge, but rather over the Rogh-Dihandang Pass (again, placeholder names that are not in local use). This is all open terrain and very steep and rocky. There may be some scrambling involved. You would need to be very experienced in off-trail high route travel and scrambling/climbing to attempt this route.

In sum: unknown gorge passage, a glacier trip that should only be attempted when the shepherds are still using the route (and the grazing season is unknown here), and then extremely difficult scrambling over multiple ridges/ passes to avoid the border zone. This will be very many days of extremely difficult hiking/scrambling if the gorge and the glacier do not stop you. If you are going north to south (or west to east), there is a chance of failure at the very end in the gorge, and then a very long return journey.

Vanjrud Gorge

Going up the Vanjrud gorge is a way to get to Ghorif from Rasht (the Sorbogh River area) without going up the Ghorif gorge. The route starts on the south side at the abandoned village of Didikhi Poyon, and goes up and over very steep open terrain to the Gaznay Pass (a placeholder name - a reference to this hillside’s abandoned pastures being referred to in the past as Gaznay). Then you go down to the Vanjrud river and look for an avalanche bridge to cross the river. After the dangerous river crossing, you need to go up and over a notch that may or may not be passable (a few hundred meters northwest of the climbers-only Banyak Pass). Then down to the village of Ghorif.

In sum: this is probably the most difficult and dangerous route. Only mountain climbers with river crossing experience should try this route. The pass to Ghorif is an unknown, and satellite imagery and topographic maps are not reassuring (could be ice, steep snow pitches and rockfall).

Galaist Gorge

The Galaist River is a tributary to the Namnarud River, which in turn flows into the Ghorif River. If travelling north to south, you would first travel from Ghorif south over a high ridge and then descend to the Namnarud Gorge and quickly come to the confluence of the Galaist. At the top of the Galaist Gorge are small glaciers, and the main problem: a steep cirque wall ridge. But there is one spur coming down from this ridge that is ice free and may be scramble-able. Maybe. It’s hard to tell. Satellite imagery and topo maps neither immediately exclude the possibility of scrambling this spur, nor do they show that is definitely possible. If I’m in the area in the future I may go up the Galaist Gorge to take a look.

If successful, you should not then descend to the Darai Jazira Gorge (impassable) but rather stay high and angle towards the sheep grazing areas at about 3200 meters above the Darai Mazor River (from where there are clear trails that I hiked) and then descend to Navobod.

In sum: an unknown scrambling route that may be an impossible rock climbing route for mountain climbers only.

A possible safe route - Sari Jazira Pass

A very long but safer route (described north to south): Another possibility that will take many extra days (versus the French hikers’ south-to-north ascent of the Ghorif Gorge) is to start at the bridge upriver from the village of Ghorif, cross the shepherd bridge on the river and go up and over the ridge via Bodravak Pass to the south and down to the Namnarud gorge. Here the shepherds use what appear to be permanent avalanche bridges across the Namnarud River (if they are melted or don’t look strong enough, you can travel up the rougher left bank). Following the right bank, you ascend the gorge and go past the Dashtikhirson grazing area (and some shepherd camps). Eventually the river will change names to “Jazira.” Soon you will be above the grass and no longer see any shepherds. You will head to the Sari Jazira Pass (AKA Dashtikhirson or Khirson Pass, not to be confused with other passes of the same name). Sari Jazira Pass has a small glacier that looks safe and easy. It may also be possible to scramble around the glacier higher up on the ridge.

You will descend to just above a river named Siyohobdara (that may or may not be the name that shepherds use). The headwaters of this river are used by shepherds, but they don’t use the Sari Jazira Pass. They come from the Romit valley side. If you look to the southwest from Sari Jazira Pass you will see a ridge running northwest to southeast. There are three active shepherd passes (names unknown) and one climbers pass over glacier (a pass with numerous names, most likely incorrect: Sangikar, Khirson, Bugune, Sari Kobdi/Kapdi, Molodozhniy) and a 4th route just to the south of this pass that can be scrambled.

One shepherd pass (3890 meters) on this ridge descends to the hamlet of Kanask (a few houses) and the upper Kaniz River. From here you can walk down a road to Romit and back to Dushanbe. Or you can go down the river on either side and eventually turn south and go up and over the Zorkamar Pass to Mujikharf and the lower Rasht valley.

If you want to head to Navobod/Gharm, then from the Siyohobdara side you should go over the 3825 meter pass farther south (name unknown). This pass has no glacier and is used by shepherds. Once through this pass you could descend to the upper part part of the Safedob River where there are shepherd camps. But rather you should head laterally to the south to another shepherd pass at 4000 meters. There is a clear sheep trail on the north side of this pass, and a cornice, snow patches and a rocky moraine on the south side. Once you descend to the headwaters of the Duoba River you quickly come across grazing areas and shepherds. You will be funneled down shepherd trails to the village of Porvogh where car roads will take you onward to the town of Navobod. Nobody has down this entire route.

If you look at the map, you may wonder whether, after coming north to south through the Sari Jazira Pass, you can just descend the river system Siyohobdara —> Darai Mazor —> Sangikar. I tried in the opposite direction, and shepherds say the slopes are just too steep and rough, with endless up and down with extreme elevation loss/gain again and again. The Navobod-side shepherds do not graze their flock much farther upriver from the Darai Jazira - Darai Mazor River confluence. I asked an experienced senior local shepherd (who led mountain tourists in the Soviet period) and he was strongly against the idea of attempting to go all the way up the Darai Mazor gorge.

2023 update: I attempted this route from south to north in summer 2023. I turned back due to possible extreme incoming bad weather. But even before I had turned back I felt that this route is not worth the effort. This area is heavily overpopulated with shepherds, sheep, manure and many, many very aggressive sheep guardian dogs. The terrain is unimpressive and sometimes ugly, the ground makes for terrible walking (loose rock forever), too much angled slope traversing (brutal on your feet), weeds and thistles dominate, and with bad weather you can get caught at high altitude between passes with no where to go down to to escape. Furthermore, for the first time since my first visit to Tajikistan 2009, I had consistently bad experiences with local people in two of the villages nearby.