Pamir Trails

The old Baltit Fort, the trouts of the Ghizer River, the Karakoram Highway (KKH) leading to Khundjerab Pass, the Chinese Border, Gojal and the high Wakhi valleys (Chapursan and Shimshal) with very traditional ways of life and many festivals (Baba Ghundi festival, Kuch in Shimshal,...), the Shandur polo festival, the old city of Chitral facing the Tirich Mir, the Kailasha Valley, the 8,000 m high peaks of Baltistan (K2, Gasherbrum, Broad Peak,...)

The five deep-blue lakes of Band-e-amir "dam of the God", the tomb of Ali in the north biggest city Mazar-i-Sharif (mainly populated by Ouzbek people), Balkh the ancient capital of Bactrian, the Wakhan Corridor, designed by a geograph to separate the Russian and English ambition at the end of the 19th century, is a big valley. Today, the sleepy river Amou-Daria (Oxus of the ancients), is the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, lined to the south by the Hindu Kush range (some summits exceed 7,000 m) and the north by the southeast summit of the Pamir (Karl Marx peak, 6,500 m). It is the heart of the Wakhi culture.

The Russian Turkestan, the high plateau of Pamir and the central range, where the highest summits exceed 7,000 m, is till very remote. The eastern part, populated by the half-nomad Kirgiz, is an altitude desert, only crossed by the Pamir Highway, a rough track, the western part (Gorno-Badakhshan) is more alpine style, cut by deep and narrow valleys, as the Bartang one, populated by Pamiris. The south is the Wakhan corridor populated by Wakhi people.