It appears that such a trip would not be a simple
undertaking.
Chinese websites says that researchers who have
been near the area say that the area is inaccessible to motor vehicles (ie there
are no motorable roads), the only means of transport are on foot or by means of
animals (cattle, horse). Even border patrol circuit consist of a route that is
30km long (which typically end at the mountain pass). They say that snow makes
up much of the landscape. They also say that the more conventional route into
Afghanistan is actually via a mountain pass on the Chinese - Pakistan
border.
I do remember watching a TV documentary about the
silk route many years ago and there was a shot of the border pillar. I even
remember seeing the two Chinese character that made up the word ' China'. If I
remember well, the landscape was desolate.
Richard
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 9:43
PM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Re:
China-Afghanistan
--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com,
"Kirk" <kirkman123@y...>
wrote:
>
> It seems that many years ago National Geographic had an
expedition
> traverse the Wakhan Valley of Afghanistan, and entered
China via an
> established road, although "road" many be generous
terminology.
> Anyone have any knowledge of the expedition?
>
> It certainly would be a coup if anyone can come up with pictures of
an
> actual border crossing anywhere along the Afghan-China
border.
>
> Kirk
yes all the data we have seen here
strongly suggest all 7 or more afcn passes are still
ungraded pack
trails
but with a good deal of traffic on them nonetheless
the
expedition article you seek may possibly be the one given under michaud 1972
in the
bibliography at the end of this article
http://www2.let.uu.nl/Solis/anpt/ejos/pdf6/dor-final.pdf
&
i think richard & i have probably both come up with good purported pix of
the afcn
border all right
at least for the time being
if not
actually pix of any certain crossing
& all thanx to your original
initiative
so we can already be delighted & grateful for all of
that
but at the same time
i think the certain bp coup would be if
anyone comes up with a picture of afcntj or afcnpk
or preferably
actually visits & reports here personally upon them
as they do
appear to be the most remote & challenging tripoints of the entire world
class