Monthly Archives: August 2026

It’s time to move on to fuller accounts of our July-August adventures in Kyrgyzstan and the Sayan Mountains, and I figure that their telling should go in chronological order: first, the Karavshin trek in the Pamir Mountains, and then rafting down the Sayan Oka River. But before anything else we need to settle some geographical terminology. And for this we need to switch on perfectionist/pedant mode so as to clarify that we weren’t actually walking in the Pamirs as such, but in the Pamir-Alay mountain system; and to be even more specific – in the part of this mountain system called the Turkestan Range. But enough already with pedantic perfectionism; main thing: it’s simply beautiful here!

Read on…

Ladies and gents, boys and girls – greetings!

It’s been a while. But of course it has: there was a vacation-heavy summer to get through! And now, finally, the time has come to begin my traditional tales from the summer-holiday side…

This year I’ll be splitting these write-ups into two segments: the first – all about our mountain trekking adventures; the second – all about our mountain-river rafting escapades. But first – also as per tradition – overview intro-post: an overview of what we did, and what’s coming up in both photos and texts…

First we hiked the Karavshin route in Kyrgyzstan, then air-teleported ourselves over to the Sayan Mountains (Russia) and rafted down the Oka River there (not to be confused with the more well-known Oka River not that far from Moscow – literally five thousand kilometers to the west:).

So how was it? In a word: awesome!

Karavshin = 10 days on foot, 115 kilometers covered, total ascent and descent = 7.5km:  the most physically punishing trek I’ve ever done. Even Kamchatka-2015 (315km trekking up and down volcanoes) was easier. All the same – it was worth every step!

The views on show there are downright magical:

The (southern Siberian) Oka River is a real beauty too…

Read on…