Pamir Highway: Murghab to Karakul

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Murghab

   Murghab is a town at the top of the world, or close to it. At around 3,600 metres on the high Pamir plateau in eastern Tajikistan, it is among the highest settlements in Central Asia, a scatter of low buildings and shipping containers set on a vast, cold desert of gravel, with bare mountains standing on every side. The air is thin and dry, the sky is an intense blue, and the nights can fall well below freezing even in summer. In winter, temperatures drop to minus thirty or lower.

   Read the complete Murghab write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Murghab is where the day begins. Next is Ak Baital Pass.

2. 2. Ak Baital Pass

   The Ak-Baital Pass, at 4,655 metres, is the highest point on the Pamir Highway, and it looks the part: a bare, windswept saddle of grey and tan rock, with no trees, no plants and scarcely any life except the odd marmot, on a high plateau where the sky seems dark blue even at noon. The name means White Horse, and the story is that a white horse once crossed here and left no tracks, though no one can say when. The road climbs from the east across a long, rough plateau and drops to the west toward Karakul, with the borders of China and Kyrgyzstan not far away.

   Read the complete Ak Baital Pass write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ak Baital Pass comes up about 140 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Karakul, mostly downhill.

3. 3. Karakul

   At about 3,900 metres, Karakul is high enough that you will notice every step. The lake lies in a bleak, enormous basin in the eastern Pamirs of Tajikistan, a sheet of cold, salty, turquoise water ringed by bare brown mountains and white peaks, with the Chinese border not far off. It filled the crater left by a meteorite that struck the Earth some five million years ago, according to the geologists, which explains its odd, nearly round shape and its lack of any outlet. No fish live here, the water being too salty, and in the early morning the surface can be glassy and still.

   Read the complete Karakul write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 266 km.