Zarafshon River Crossing & Campsite [part 2]

So we drove as far as we could to the top of the valley. On the map I could see that the road was on the north side of the river, and the trailhead was on the south side of the river. As we were approaching the area of the trailhead, we were expecting to see a bridge of some sort to get us across.

This is what we found...



This basket bridge spanned the river in two sections with a tower in the middle. When we initially arrived the baskets were on the other side and there was no way to get to them. We knew that if we were going to do this hike we had to a way across the river, so I walked in. Wading nearly waist high before the main channel of the river, I tried to get the attention of a couple of people I could see on the other side of the river. One finally saw me, and soon a soldier came across the river with the baskets. He was very friendly and said he could take us and our gear across.

As a fellow traveler noted: "Its made of sticks. What's the worst that could happen?" Hop on in...

The first group on their way...

Another soldier showed up to help...

Then it was our turn. Getting started...

A view downstream...

And up the valley...

Approaching the middle tower...


We camped on the other side two nights, and I wound up having to cross 4x to get more supplies from the car. By the end the soldiers let us cross ourselves...


A vid from the first crossing...




So why were there soldiers ferrying us across the river? Well, a short distance down the valley from this bridge there was a small army base of border soldiers (due to the proximity to the Kyrgyz border). This patch of land on the other side of the river was the potato patch for the base. There were also shepherds in the valley, and it turns out that cows love to eat potato plants. So two soldiers had to live over here to guard the potatoes from the cows. Our friends could have been replaced with a fence.

We camped here two nights and shared our dinners with our new friends. They were thrilled to eat something other than potatoes. They lived in this little house...

One of the soldiers carrying out his cow shoo-ing duty...

A view up the mountain behind our campsite. A crescent moon perched atop Mount Khuja-i-Muso made it look like a natural mosque...

Next time: our hike to the glacier(?) and beyond...