This mountain is located on the border between Armenia and the west part
of Azerbaijan, called the Nakhcivan region. This region is completely
separated from the rest of Azerbaijan. (By Armenia extending all the way
south to Iran.)
A natural point of reference is the regional capital Nakhcivan, having regular
flights to/from Baku.
How to get there:
Drive south-east from Nakhcivan towards the Iran border on Hwy. E002. Near the
border, the road turns more east. Continue to location N38.93715, E45.82401, turn left here.
Continue to location N39.11746, E45.87799, keep right here. You will arrive at a small
village Tivi, near location N39.12594, E45.90037. The road is paved to this location.
From here, one should take a dirt road that climbs uphill towards the south. (A right fork from
the road that got you here.) We used a 4WD, however a high clearance vehicle is likely to make
it easily across to the next village Paragachay. However, a 4WD is needed to continue from there.
From Paragachay, the road continues into the valley, then ascends steeply with several hairpin
curves to reach a military border check point at location N39.13707, E46.01545, elevation 3060 meter.
The road continues uphill and ends
near a building at location N39.14571, E46.00808, elevation 3515 meter.
Route description:
The local people say that there is a trail from this trailhead to the summit. The elevation gain is
about 400 meter and the horizontal distance less than 2 kilometer.
Comments:
After a brief night in Baku, we had a 0600 flight to Nakhcivan, picked up at the airport by an
English speaking local, we first went to his house. Another local guide showed up and we then
drove to the small village Tivi. There, we switched
to a Russian jeep with a new driver, he then
got us to the small village of Paragachay.
The houses here were clearly more than 60 years old, in fact, the population of this entire
village was somewhere between 5 and 10 only.
We had dinner (and breakfast the next morning) under
a large walnut tree.
The tree had quite many walnuts
that will be harvested in September.
If one removes the
outer green skin a walnut will indeed appear.
I slept upstairs in a house on the upper side of the road, while David slept upstairs
in the main buiilding.
The jeep returned after breakfast the next morning. We got organized and then continued
our drive into the valley.
The road is steepish and has no protection, careful driving
is essential. The road next climbs the right hand side hill in several switch-backs. Higher
up, a traverse left got us near the main drainage between the slope we had ascended and the
slope of our target mountain. These high roads are clearly built by the military. The conflict
between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been going on with variable intensity across many years.
Then at around 3050 meter, we stopped by the military check point. A small contigent of army
solidiers are based up here. They get supplies by a truck, there is drinking water in the
creek that flows nearby. We believed (having a permit)
that this stop would be quite short,
but the process dragged out. Our man from Azerbaijan Guides was constantly on the phone with
various people back in the capital, Baku. Finally, after more than one hour he announced that
our permit had been canceled and that we had to turn around and drive back down. Very surprising
and very disappointing! We should have driven a little bit more, all we could now
do was just looking at the slope stretching uphill.
Not much could be done.
We drove back down and
across to the village with the other car.
Our contact checked us in at a nice, modern hotel. Nice to relax and use wifi, our flight
was not until after midnight.
