Pamir Highway: Day 5 – Engel peak meadows hike

There are two possible trailheads that lead up to  Engel peak meadows. The shorter but much steeper one starts from Langar and the other longer but more gradual starts from Zong. We started from Zong, where we were promptly dropped at the trailhead by our driver Toorat at 7 in the morning.

The morning sun wasn’t keen on showing itself and remained behind clouds pretty much most of the time. There were however occasions when beams of sunlight would pierce through the clouds putting spotlight on the snowy peaks. 

Hiking stats

Trail: 20kmts
Elevation gain: 1100mts (starting from Zong)
Hiking Time: 8hours

The trail is relentless and starts to climb up right from the start. We get to the narrow stream that seems to be built by locals to divert water from the Kishtijarib river to the village to ensure year around water supply. The trail from here gets flat with a very gradual incline and offers views towards the confluence of Pamir and Wakhan rivers which merge to form the Panj river. The lofty brown peaks in Afghanistan give way to the white snow covered peaks of Hindukush range in Pakistan. The trail then merges with the trail from Langar before veering left into the valley. We get glimpses of the Pamir mountain range, whose peaks were shrouded by clouds. 


We continue to follow the man made stream until it merges with the river. We navigate the small boulder field on the left bank of the river, by this point we can feel the altitude quite intensely and all three of us have a pounding head. We pass by a herd of loaded donkeys from the opposite side, followed by a group of people who seem to have spent a night up  at the meadows. With the aching head, we feel contend of not choosing to have slept at an altitude of 4600mts and instead doing this as a day hike.

Even with our day packs we were very slow as the elevation climbed up and it took us a good 5 hours from when we started to finally arrive at the lush green meadows. Engel’s peak was partly visible but the top was obscured by clouds. We made a lunch of instant noodles and walked around the meadows. On the far end was an unnamed lake that required navigating the braided stream, and was boggy in certain sections. The clouds cleared up further more and we got better views of Engels peak and Karl Marks’s peak. 

The way back wasn’t any easy, very step downhill had our head hurting. It however didn’t take us as long as the way up. We were all very keen on getting back to the village, yet the clearer views now meant we would still take breaks to admire the sights of the lofty peaks. We got back down in about 3hours. A panicked Toorat meets us a kilometer ahead of the trailhead as he hiked up to check on us. We had given him an estimate in the morning, that we would be back in about 6 hours. If there was one thing we would do differently is to treat the elevation with the respect it deserves and not underestimate the hike. In the end we were glad to have completed it despite not being in best of our condition.

After the hike we head straight to the Daulatkhana guesthouse in Langar. A hot shower and hot tea later we feel better and our head moves from pounding to a mild headache that took us two more days to fully recover from.