Silk Ridge

Twelve routes

Every route runs on fixed dates and can also be arranged privately for your own group. Prices are per person, land only, and include guides, permits, food on the trail and transfers.

Country
Difficulty

12 routes

Khinalug and the Shahdag ridge Azerbaijan

Khinalug and the Shahdag ridge

Moderate

Five days above 2,000 m from Europe's highest continuously inhabited village. Stone houses, a language spoken nowhere else, and shepherd paths onto the Shahdag plateau.

days
5
max altitude
3 200 m
people max
8
from
€690
Altitude profile

Season May – Oct

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Bazarduzu, 4,466 m Azerbaijan

Bazarduzu, 4,466 m

Hard

The highest point in Azerbaijan, approached from the Shahnabad valley. Two nights on the moraine, an alpine start, and a summit ridge that looks straight into Dagestan.

days
6
max altitude
4 466 m
people max
6
from
€890
Altitude profile

Season Jul – Sep

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Lahic and Basqal: coppersmiths and ridgelines Azerbaijan

Lahic and Basqal: coppersmiths and ridgelines

Easy

Cobbled workshop streets where copper is still hammered by hand, then two days walking the beech ridges above the Girdimanchay gorge.

days
4
max altitude
1 800 m
people max
10
from
€520
Altitude profile

Season Apr – Oct

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Gobustan petroglyphs and the Absheron fires Azerbaijan

Gobustan petroglyphs and the Absheron fires

Easy

Forty thousand years of rock carvings, a field of mud volcanoes that bubble cold, and the natural gas vent at Yanardag that has burned without pause since antiquity.

days
2
max altitude
400 m
people max
12
from
€240
Altitude profile

Season Jan – Jun, Sep – Dec

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Fann Mountains: Kulikalon and Alauddin Tajikistan

Fann Mountains: Kulikalon and Alauddin

Moderate

The lake circuit under Chimtarga, crossing the Alauddin pass at 3,860 m. Water here runs turquoise from glacial silt, and the camps sit on grass at the foot of granite walls.

days
8
max altitude
3 860 m
people max
8
from
€1 180
Altitude profile

Season Jun – Sep

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The Pamir Highway and the Wakhan corridor Tajikistan

The Pamir Highway and the Wakhan corridor

Moderate

Eleven days by 4×4 over the Ak-Baital pass at 4,655 m, down the Wakhan with the Hindu Kush on the far bank, sleeping in Pamiri family houses.

days
11
max altitude
4 655 m
people max
6
from
€1 890
Altitude profile

Season Jun – Sep

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Iskanderkul and the Sarytag valley Tajikistan

Iskanderkul and the Sarytag valley

Easy

The lake Alexander's army is said to have camped beside, the Fann Niagara waterfall, and day walks into Sarytag with no load heavier than a daypack.

days
5
max altitude
2 900 m
people max
10
from
€740
Altitude profile

Season May – Oct

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Darvaza crater and the Kopet Dag Turkmenistan

Darvaza crater and the Kopet Dag

Moderate

A night camped on the rim of a gas crater that has burned since 1971, then three days on the Kopet Dag ridges along the Iranian border.

days
6
max altitude
1 800 m
people max
8
from
€980
Altitude profile

Season Mar – May, Sep – Nov

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Yangykala canyon and the Caspian shore Turkmenistan

Yangykala canyon and the Caspian shore

Easy

Cliffs banded pink, ochre and white — the floor of a sea that drained five million years ago. Camping on the rim, then the Caspian at Turkmenbashi.

days
5
max altitude
300 m
people max
8
from
€860
Altitude profile

Season Mar – May, Oct – Nov

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Elbrus, 5,642 m Russia

Elbrus, 5,642 m

Hard

Nine days with four built in for acclimatisation and weather. Six climbers to two guides, oxygen saturation checked daily, and a hard turnaround time on summit night.

days
9
max altitude
5 642 m
people max
6
from
€1 450
Altitude profile

Season Jun – Sep

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Dagestan: Sulak, Gunib, Chokh Russia

Dagestan: Sulak, Gunib, Chokh

Moderate

The deepest canyon in Europe, then the terraced villages of the interior — Chokh, Gamsutl, Goor — where houses are cut into the cliff rather than built on it.

days
7
max altitude
2 400 m
people max
8
from
€890
Altitude profile

Season Apr – Oct

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Dombay and Arkhyz Russia

Dombay and Arkhyz

Easy

Pine forest and glacier tongues in the Western Caucasus, with hut-to-hut days short enough to leave afternoons free. A good first mountain week.

days
6
max altitude
3 000 m
people max
10
from
€790
Altitude profile

Season Jun – Sep

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