A few hours walk out of Sarhad is the Dahliz Pass. I should add this is a few hours' walk steeply up hill, as the Pass is over 3000' higher than the village. The swift ascent and the resultant need to acclimatise at speed is a physical challenge. The effort, unusually, is worth it.
The Pamirs are sometimes referred to as the "Roof of the World" and indeed, the history of the RSAA is called Strolling about on the Roof of the World in reference to the Great Game. Standing atop the Dahliz Pass, wheezing erratically, the term could not feel more right: you stand with the world quite literally at your feet - peak after peak unveiled before you. I felt humbled by the scale and unspoilt beauty of this most epic landscape.
Waking up to find your socks actually frozen to the side of the tent is not an ideal way to start the morning. When further inspection also reveals a layer of ice on your boots and the lower half of your hiking trousers to be stiff, it hardly endears you to the weather.
We camped last night at a summer pasture some three days hard walk east of Sarhad. The snow is slowly creeping down the surrounding peaks and even once we reach our destination late this afternoon, we still have to hope the weather holds out long enough to complete the four days' trek back again. The Dahliz Pass was spectacular in bright sunshine but would undoubtedly be treacherous under a foot of snow.
The Pamirs are sometimes referred to as the "Roof of the World" and indeed, the history of the RSAA is called Strolling about on the Roof of the World in reference to the Great Game. Standing atop the Dahliz Pass, wheezing erratically, the term could not feel more right: you stand with the world quite literally at your feet - peak after peak unveiled before you. I felt humbled by the scale and unspoilt beauty of this most epic landscape.
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Waking up to find your socks actually frozen to the side of the tent is not an ideal way to start the morning. When further inspection also reveals a layer of ice on your boots and the lower half of your hiking trousers to be stiff, it hardly endears you to the weather.
We camped last night at a summer pasture some three days hard walk east of Sarhad. The snow is slowly creeping down the surrounding peaks and even once we reach our destination late this afternoon, we still have to hope the weather holds out long enough to complete the four days' trek back again. The Dahliz Pass was spectacular in bright sunshine but would undoubtedly be treacherous under a foot of snow.
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