How to get there:
This peak on the border with Russia, is the highest mountain in Azerbaijan.
The closest local village is the small village Khinaliq,
located at
N41.18127, E48.12797
elevation near 2160 meter. There is a nice guesthouse
(at the coordinates given) in this village.
From here, one may hire a 4WD and go to location N41.20614, E47.91465, elevation 2860 meter.
This trip takes about 2 hours. You need to register with the national park immediately after
leaving town, then there is a military checkpoint shortly thereafter.
Most likely, some local support "guides" (possibly an official permit?) are needed to enter this area.
The drive to Khinaliq from Baku takes about 4-5 hours. Before getting to Khinaliq, the road will
take you up a very narrow
and impressive canyon. The drive onwards from Khinaliq is
also quite scenic as
you climb across a high pass before descending into a rather large, high elevation
valley area with lots of sheep and other farm animals.
The road gets rougher near the end. The road/track ends where the valley becomes
more narrow - there is only space left for the river.
Route description:
The route from the trailhead to the base camp area follows the river in the valley.
The trail mainly runs above this river on the right hand side (hiker looking upstream).
It is a clear trail all the way, but sometimes a bit narrow as it traverses loose
scree. A fall/slip off the trail could be very unpleasant in several locations.
The base camp is located
on a fairly flat spot on top of a small ridge that forms between
two branches of the river as it forks draining two different areas. There is room for several
tents and an area suitable for cooking has also been established.
From base camp, the route gently climbs right (as seen when looking uphill) and contours
nicely into the small drainage at the very base of Bazarduzu.
From there, it zig-zags up a rather long slope.
A more direct scree-run line of descent is
also clearly visible. Higher up, the trail enters a ridge with broken rocks, ascending higher
without any difficulties. The end of a short summit ridge is visible (looking as a small
top) uphill slightly on climbers left. The route finally traverses easy ground and climbs this
top, the summit marker is then visible a short distance away along the short summit ridge.
Comments:
We had breakfast at the Khinaliq guesthouse, then left with a 4WD jeep around 0900.
First a short registration stop at the national park headquarter, next a slightly
longer stop (passports being inspected) at the military gate. A long and scenic drive
followed, then arriving at the end of the jeep road shortly before 1100.
The hike up the valley to the camp was easy and we arrived there around 1200 noon.
Surprisingly many tents, a group of Germans had climbed the peak and were about
to take their tents down, then returning to the road. Another pretty large group
of 13 from Estonia had been on the summit this morning. They rested and planned
to stay another night, then return the next morning.
I walked the initial part of the trail as far as to
the snow in the gully that marked
the beginning of the mountain slope. We had a nice and relaxed evening. I did not want
to carry a tent up here for a single night,
thus planned to sleep under the sky. This seemed
to surprise the Estonians to the extent that several pictures were taken.
As almost always when the weather is nice, sleeping outside is good. The stars soon covered
the sky, there was no moon in the early night.
We had agreed to start at 0400. The day would end at a nice hotel in Baku, but returning
there implied 2 hours of jeep ride plus at least 4 hours of driving. We had asked
the jeep to be back to pick us up by 1100. This meant we should try to complete the
climb in less than 6 hours in order to allow an hour for the retun hike from camp to
the jeep.
We departed on time at 0400, the weather was nice and we
quickly made good progress up
the many zig-zags on the first big slope. The sun came, but our trail remained in the
shade until the very last stretch tending
left towards what looked like the summit.
Arrival at 0715, so 3:15 up
(including a brief stop along the way). Good views all
around. We could see some Russian villages down in a deep valley.
The summit marker
had various inscriptions as well as a memorial.We stayed
25 minutes before heading downhill.
What had been a long uphill ascent with many zig-zags
was a quick and easy scree-run descent
near the end.
Back down by 0900, so 5 hours including around 30 minutes stop. We had almost one
hour to rest, then clear camp. Departing at 0945, we reached the car after approximately
55 minutes. The people from Estonia had left camp before we returned to camp, but we
did catch up with the group near the trailhead giving us the opportunity to say
a final good bye.
The drive back to Khinaliq went smoothly and so did the connecting drive to Baku.
Our guide Ulvi came along, he would pick us up at the hotel the next morning for
our early flight to the western part of Azerbaijan.
