These shots are made  during our trips through Pamir and Tyan-Shan ( Tadzikistan, Kirgyzstan, Uzbekistan). In Russia this sport is called "mountain tourism", which, actually, is a mixture of many- days-hiking and alpinism with heavy rucksacks. There are also exist competitions:  several groups from different parts of country participate and the overall difficulty depends on the rank of the competition. At the highest rank the travels are extreme indeed: it takes 30-40 days at high altitudes and include parts with highest alpinistic degrees of difficulty. The route for the high-ranked competition has to be chosen in such a way that at least a part of the way has never been visited by other people before this team. The documental photography  of the route and detailed description are the musts.  Our routes in Pamir were between the altitudes 4000 - 7000 m and this explains why at the present time "white spots" still exist. The team, in our cases consisting  of 6, rarely, 8 men, did not have any support from anywhere during the travel and did not have any radio or other connection with the rest of the world. This requires absolute reliability of each member of the team in any action of the route.
(Click on photo to increase the size.)
River crossing Making the way Firn wall
Cracks on Fedchenko In icefall: where to get thru? In icefall
The only place to sit overnight Crossing bergschrund On Korzhenevskaya peak
Nobody can live here Last steps to sky Fedchenko glacier
Where glacier is borned It is middle of summer, 
but water does not exist 
here in a liquid phase,
it is too high. The air is too thin
to  hold helicopters.
That is why no mistake is allowed.		 View of Pamir Firn Plateau ( 3x11 km)