We decided to make a two-day hike with a crossing over the watershed ridge from the Takob gorge to the upper reaches of the Odzhuk gorge. The plan was to go through the Childukhtaron pass, but since no one knew the exact path, we asked the locals for directions. They confused us a little, and we initially went to the wrong couloir. As it turned out, locals don't use this pass to get to Odzhuk, as it is not very convenient for them. Moreover, the locals refer to the whole ridge as Childukhtaron, which does remotely resemble the famous mountain of the same name in Muminobod. And one can cross this ridge from Takob to Odzhuk in several places.

Nevertheless, the hike turned out to be very successful. We drove from Dushanbe to the village of Takob by car, precisely to the village, as the Takob settlement is located slightly lower down the road. There is a trail that starts from the village, and following it, we climbed up the ridge, which looked like the pass from below. But it was not, and after some time, the trail disappeared, so we had to climb through completely wild terrain without any trails. The ascent was tough; we walked for about seven hours, through rocks, scree, and completely wild overgrown grass, which sometimes reached human height.

After a snack and a rest on this improvised pass, making a traverse around the highest peak in the ridge, we reached a picturesque mountain plateau with incredibly beautiful views. This is where you can see why this place is called Childukhtaron. By the way, the name on the map is Childukhtarakhon, although those who know the Tajik language claim that the name is incorrect, but I can't judge that. Following the trail, which was very lucky for us, bypassing the plateau along the edge, we reached the watershed ridge.

Next, we walked straight along the ridge, covering a significant part of the Odzhuk gorge. There, at the top, we found a stream and a convenient clearing where we spent the night. The next day, we descended into the Odzhuk gorge near the fork to Kharangon, where the gardens are now located, and the village of Odzhuk was located before. This will be somewhere in the middle of the Odzhuk gorge if you take the settlement of Varzob as the starting point and the Kichkine pass as the ending point. After all the adventures, we took several breaks for snacks and swimming and walked through the Odzhuk gorge to the village of Varzob, from where we returned to Dushanbe.

Here is the map of our route on Google Maps..

View from the trail from the village of Takob, the ridge so far only visible.

The view is closer, the path is already more obvious, our goal is the saddle, which is almost in the center of the photo.

We go higher, the view around changes.

Next, a few photos in which we gradually go uphill.

Last spurt, last meters to the end of the climb.

Finally, climbed the ridge, the views around are awesome.

View of the Takob gorge from where they climbed.

And, suddenly, again, a view of the Takob gorge, dear, this is not a dividing ridge, which means we are still in Takob...

Here is our future path, we need to go around the top to get further to the dividing ridge.

Top view, saddle and ridge we climbed.

Plateau exit.

View from the plateau on the Takob gorge.

Views from the plateau, further hiking trails.

The upper reaches of the Odjuk gorge appeared.

Here along this path that goes around the plateau in a circle.

We came to the descent from the plateau.

This descent, leads to that very watershed ridge, it is in front of you.

The descent to the ridge passes through the picturesque cliffs, on both sides of the trail.

View of the upper reaches of the Odjuk gorge.

That's where we went down and entered the dividing ridge.

Now, on our left is Odjuk Gorge.

And on the right is Takob Gorge.

And we, satisfied with ourselves, went further along the watershed ridge.

Where a beautiful sunset caught us.

But, even when the sun went down it was still light, we left the ridge and went to look for a parking place.

We found a stream and a convenient place to park, but the camp was set up in the moonlight. Photo the next morning.

Утром нам предстоял спуск в ущелье Оджук.

In the morning we had to go down to the Odjuk gorge.

If you look directly, you have a view of the gorge, which you can pass from Ojuk to Harangon.

View of the upper Odjuk gorge from the same place.

And a view of the Ojuk gorge towards the village of Varzob, where we will end our fascinating journey.

All the best to you and see you soon...

Source in Russian: "Поход-переход из Такоба в Оджук, ущелье Варзоб, горы Таджикистана"

Hiking from Takob to Odzhuk, Varzob Gorge, Mountains of Tajikistan