The Pamir is the reason most adventurers come to Tajikistan — the 'Roof of the World', a vast high plateau of 6,000 and 7,000 m peaks, glacier-fed valleys and one of the planet's great mountain roads. Covering nearly half the country, it is as wild and committing as trekking and expedition travel get, a place of yak herders, hot springs and Pamiri stone houses where hospitality is a sacred duty and the horizon never seems to end.
The highway and the valleys
Overland journeys on the Pamir Highway — the world's second-highest international road — thread past mirror lakes and 4,000 m passes, while trekking in the Wakhan Valley runs beneath the Hindu Kush with Afghanistan across the river, and the remote Bartang offers some of the wildest walking in Asia.
The big peaks
Serious mountaineering centres on Ismoil Somoni (7,495 m) and Korzhenevskaya in Gorno-Badakhshan, reached by helicopter to glacier base camps. A GBAO permit is required and logistics are self-sufficient; open the Book here tab for dates.
