Kulikalon Camping:
There and Back Again
You can, it turns out, go back again; even just for Kulikalon Camping. Camping in the Kulikalon Valley in the Fann Mountains of Tajikistan stands out as one of my favorite memories of traveling in Central Asia from my first long journey through the region in spring 2012, along with the nearby Seven Lakes (Haft Kol) area. Wild nature, pristine lakes, starry skies, and snowed-in passes. So it was with a lot of excitement but also some small trepidation that I looked forward to returning in summer 2019 for work with USAID’s CTJ project to promote the region to an international audience with a handful of travel bloggers.
Would the hike be as amazing as I remembered? The lakes as unbelievably blue? The landscapes as nearly-untouched by humankind as they were so many years before? Would everything that makes travel in Tajikistan so amazing have stayed the same from that first remarkable 2012 trip?
(For a full description of the hike route and GPS files, see Asia-Hike’s coverage of the Tajikistan Kulikalon Lakes Hikes.)
Setting off from the Artuch Alplager, a ‘pricey’ overnight for a backpacker that I’d bypassed so many years before in favor of camping next to the tent of the shepherd family who’d given me a ride from Penjikent, we made our way up a back route to Kulikalon via the Chukurak lake. Eschewing the more direct route up the terminal moraine of the glacier that once covered the whole valley, the harder and higher and steeper climb via the 3160m Chukurak Pass has one very obvious advantage: the incredible views across the Kulikalon depression that stretch out from the top.
Winding slowly down from the pass to the lush green Kulikalon Valley, the Kulikalon lakes sparkle under the real life sunlight even more brightly than in memory. Shades of blue too perfect for nature, dark rock walls capped with pure-white snow, sheep-shorn meadows off the immediate trekkers’ trail. As threatening gray cloudbanks descend slowly down from the peaks into the valley, a roaring stream of the clearest water connects four small lakes one after another as climb the valley toward the glacial source.
Kulikalon camping and trekking has in some key ways gotten significantly easier in the intervening years. A semi-permanent tent camp sells basic meals (and booze) to trekkers who don’t want the hassle. Trailhead transportation is more readily available, as are pack mules to lug camp equipment. But though the trek has become more popular, is has lost very little of its appeal. These lakes still shine cool and inviting under the midday mountain sun, the moon still rises high over this charmed mountain valley and sets to reveal a star-filled sky.
Arising early in the morning, as another day of brilliant sunshine begins to light the surrounding peaks and reflect in the still water of the many tiny ponds surrounding Bibidzhanat and our soon-departed campsite halfway up the valley, we slowly pack in preparation for another day of walking and shooting and marveling at the wonder of it all. Stone-stepping across the stream once more, we continue flowing south up this glacier-carved valley towards the steep rock walls and hanging snowy glaciers the form the topmost boundary.
Slowly up the large lateral moraine beyond the Maria glacier, the tiny two Dushakha lakes come at last into view. Past first by fitter trekkers, then again by our fast-footed donkeys (whose handlers invariable leave camp later than us in the mornings but arrive much earlier to the end of the day’s journey), we slowly climb the trek’s last climb towards a pass once climbed those many years before.
Finally, atop the 3780m Alaudin Pass, a view the same and yet so different from an early spring visit of years before. Two moments, seven years apart, that in the same external place evoke the same internal emotions. Thankfulness for opportunity, fatigue from exertion, and yet a desire to push on and see and know and do more.
From here all beyond is novel, adventure untrodden by memory, and yet once more at an end the urge to return again and again must linger long – for memories of old adventures and lust for new experiences, these trailheads in our travel diaries carry still the power to inspire wanderlust for places that can never more be what we remember them to be, but which will always offer the same sense of wonder no matter how many visits the traveller may make. Because we can, in some sense, still go back again.
Contact Artuch Travel for information on arranging this trip or overnights at the alplager, or Dushanbe-based Javohir Travel for broader itineraries across Tajikistan. For information on arranging these treks independently, including how to get to Artuch from the nearest transportation hub in Penjikent, check out the most recent Lonely Planet: Central Asia (to which I contributed the Kyrgyzstan chapter).
This publication is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Competitiveness, Trade, and Jobs Activity in Central Asia. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of MonkBoughtLunch and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
