Vanj Range
There is one relatively easy pass that connects the Yazghulom Valley over the Vanj Ridge to the Vanj Valley: Gushkhun Pass (4365 meter). This pass connects the Yazghulom village of Zhamag to the regional center town of Vanj (arriving first in the village of Gushkhun). The name is also spelled Gishkhun and Gshun. This pass was a well used historical caravan pass that declined into obscurity with the construction of a road along the Panj River that easily connects Yazghulom to Vanj.
I won’t use this pass except in case of total failure to find a pass farther up the valleys. This pass is hot, dry and boring: it connects two areas with car roads. So if you arrive in Vanj through this pass you will have to walk a long way on hot, dusty car roads to get anywhere. Plus, you will miss the upper Yazghulom, which I believe has better scenery than the lower valley.
The only other historical pass that connects Vanj to Yazghulom is Langar Pass at 4413 meters. Be careful with this name, as there are several Langar Passes and many villages with this name throughout Tajikistan. This is not a difficult pass, with just a small messy glacier and, in early to mid-summer, some steep snow on the north side. The problem is the descent down the gorge on the Yazghulom side. Once roads were built, this pass was abandoned, and any bridges that existed here were no longer maintained, shepherd camps up high were abandoned, and Soviet authorities kidnapped all the people in the upper Yazghulom and exiled them to work on cotton plantations. After this, almost all bridges and trails in the upper Yazghulom fell into disuse and disrepair. Unfortunately, the gorge you would have ascended, Ghijovasi, really needs bridges.
What is this gorge like without bridges? Basically impossible until low water in October. You can see Peter Burgess’ very brief report here. Another very experienced group recently came down this gorge during the summer, and they did not have a good time. Second-hand account via email:
They took the Langar Pass from Ghumast. As you know, the approach from the Vanj side is on an old mining road so it is very easy. But, the descent is heinous. Very hard terrain, no path, bypassing huge obstacles like cliffs. Although many maps suggest this is a route they told me it really wasn't. The Yazghulom River itself was impassable. Going upstream seemed endless and hard. Going downstream was the option they took but it was plainly dangerous. Lots of ups and downs on steep, loose terrain. It took them three days to cover 10km and these guys have hiked a lot, super experienced.
Long story short, the route to Yazghulom via the Langar Pass is a definite no-go.
This route was impassable long ago. The local people here were deported in the 1950s, so the bridges were likely destroyed soon after with nobody to maintain them. In the last week of July 1959 the Kovalev group (who referred to the river/gorge as “Khadzhi-ausi“) ascended the gorge and found the remains of the first bridge destroyed except for the remains of the foundations. They then spent multiple days making very slow progress up the gorge. The lack of bridges was confirmed again in 1964 when a group of Russian climbers went over Langar Pass from Vanj and descended down Ghijovasi Gorge (see photos below) in mid- to late-August 1964. They took as long as the email group above, but instead used Tyrolean traverses to go across the river when they encountered an obstacle, as opposed to the group above that hiked/climbed up and around.
The next year the 1965 Petrin group descended the gorge from Ghijovasi Pass (an alternate approach) and reported three crossings and three days descending he gorge.
So, the lower Ghijovasi Gorge is very slow, super time-consuming, extremely difficult and dangerous. And that’s for climbers and very experienced trekkers. But I would not completely rule out Langar Pass. I will make an attempt to enter the mid-Ghijovasi Gorge over a ridge from the east, bypassing the lower Ghijovasi Gorge. I will hike up to the mid-elevations (3400 meters) of the Darai Barnovaj Gorge from the abandoned hamlet of Barnovad and try to climb over a ridge via a scree couloir that eventually becomes scrambling over mixed rock and scree. This may be impossible, or it may be climbing/scrambling. Don’t attempt it unless you have experience with this sort of thing.
This ridge is not the only obstacle. The nearest obstacle is the Darai Barnovaj River, which the Kovalev group reported great difficulty crossing (by use of rope and chest harness). I will be coming from upriver, and I will need to get across the Barnovaj River to ascend the right bank of the Darai Barnovaj Gorge.
My initial plan is to go up the Shabug Gorge to see if I can connect to the Sungad Gorge on the Vanj side. But the passes here will most likely be mountaineering only. All other passes farther east on the Vanj Ridge are difficult mountaineering passes.
Realistically, you’ll probably have to retreat down the Yazghulom Valley to the Gushkhun Pass if you want to go to Vanj.
What if you do make it to the upper Ghijovasi Gorge? You will then have a free and clear route to Langar Pass. I plan to bring crampons and an ice axe. Below is what the pass looks like on the north side (probably late July to early August). Photo by Jean-Claude Latombe, who climbed up to the the bottom of the pass (but not through it).
Note that the steep section above appears to be a scree slope later in the year. Peter Burgess calls the north side of Langar Pass an “easy ascent“ (but he is also a climber, so take that as not an assessment for a regular hiker).
If when you cross the Langar pass to the Vanj side, there is a direct route down the Langar Gorge on an old mining road. The Langar Gorge is not very scenic. If I have the energy and the food I will make my way east over a saddle to the Sungad Gorge, which looks far more interesting and scenic. This gorge comes down to the Vanj Valley about 5km from the village of Poymazor.
Cultural notes: the names on the Vanj ridge and in the Vanj valley itself suffer from “vowel invasion,“ meaning far off bureaucrats added vowels to indigenous names. So Gushkhun/Gishkhun Pass/Village is “Gshun” according to the indigenous people. Same for many other names, Ghijovasi = Ghjovasi, Shirgovad =Shrgovad, etcetera… Vanj no longer has its own language. The people here adopted Tajik.
Special considerations: If you successfully cross to the Vanj Valley, the forest ranger in Poymazor collects fees for the Tajikistan National Park. There is also a guesthouse marked on the map in Poymazor. But I can find no reports for it, aside from one old internet mention stating that the owner’s name is Jafar Kholov. This village is isolated enough that you should be able to find accommodation with somebody. If you look sad and confused, someone will invite you in. As for resupplying, you would probably need to get a ride to the district center town of Vanj and back. This will not be easy to arrange, nor cheap. I’m hoping to be able to negotiate some food purchases locally in Poymazor. But don’t expect much beyond bread and macaroni to be available.