The Fellowship of the Karavshin Ring returns to civilization.

Our Karavshin mountain trek in the Pamir-Alay was coming to an end, or rather – coming back to the beginning, for we started and finished at the same point, having completed a big loop.

And so the final day of our walk/trek/journey/hike/tough hike/grueling expedition – take your pick – had come. My pick: tough hike (but a great one): around a kilometer up and another kilometer down along the vertical almost every day isn’t something I’m used to, and I haven’t been a spring chicken for a very long time now. But, like I say, on the whole – great! Highly recommended!

But now it was time to head on down and back to where we’d started out from. That morning we woke up to these splendid views:

And a little later when those clouds had cleared:

And then down we went, heading north – the way the gorge runs and the Ak-Suu River flows.

Since we were heading back from mountain landscapes down to the lowlands, today’s descent was a pretty hefty one too – the same 1,500 meters as on the first day. The only real difference is that if you’re going up, your pics tend to be taken from down below and up the valley; and when you’re heading back down – they’re taken from above and down it!

The landscape changed markedly: one minute it was a steep rocky drop, the next it’s a valley – flat, green, and hiker-friendly…

…And with designer trees! ->

So pretty it’s almost too much!

A magnificent finale to a great expedition. Ten days of a perfectly peaceful, brutally beautiful mountain trek – and all with the friendliest of crews. Oh, it was just so good! // Already I miss it and want more!…

But it wasn’t farewell-hug time just yet, so we just carried on down…

In places rickety old bridges helped us out in crossing raging streams:

Yes – fording these would have been tough:

“The hikers have made it across. Yes, it looks safe? Then we’ll take the bridge too”!

After 10 days in the Turkestan Range, we were pretty worn out, and some of us had come to miss the comforts of civilization a touch; however, at the same time most of us we were already starting to reminisce a little, remembering that soon we’d all be back in the office – a sobering thought from the setting we were in ). So I decided to lift the mood by saying something along the lines of “We’ve got to do this again; heck – I’d be on for this year even!”

We were going to miss the donkeys (carrying much lighter loads by now (no beer!))! ->

The trail was a good, solid one practically everywhere:

Only occasionally did it get a little tricky…

Here, a whopper of a rock came rolling down. No animals were injured!

There wasn’t much farther to go now – we even started coming across some fairly civilized bridges:

That’s it! Civilization. A small hydroelectric power plant is being built here. Ooh, shall we book a taxi for the rest of the way?…

Joke. No Uber or its equivalent around here. Not yet, anyway…

“Yes – this needs repeating!” – my thoughts on this final stretch…

That’s it – we made it. My legs were begging to be arms instead, my body was craving a spa massage, and my mind was a little blown by everything I’d seen… or something like that :)

And that was that: the Karavshin mountain trek – done! Actually “that was that” applied only to the main group – some were staying back for yet more fun and games!

The best hi-res photos from Karavshin are here.