John Mock & Kimberley O'Neil

Highlights

Press Releases & Clips

Exploration Highlights

2011 Highlights

Shrine Traditions of Wakhan Afghanistan

"Shrine Traditions of Wakhan Afghanistan" is published in a special issue on the Pamir of the Journal of Persianate Studies. This study, based on field work from 2004-2010, describes the religious, social, and historical context of shrines of Wakhan District of Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan. The study draws comparisons between documented shrine traditions in adjacent Wakhan Tajikistan and in Hunza-Gojal of Pakistan.

2008 Highlights

New Edition of Pakistan & the Karakoram Highway

2007 Highlights

2006 Highlights

Middle of Nowhere

From the Publisher

Lonely Planet's Guide to the Middle of Nowhere is a celebration of travel, the pioneering spirit and the truth that our well-trodden world is still full of places untouched and untrampled - they're all around us, you just need to explore. We take you on tankers to the Antarctic, with armed rebels in Colombia, the neon madness of Vegas and on epic journeys through Africa. Spin the globe, throw away the map, head out and find your own Nowhere.

"The Roof of the World" about the Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan in The Lonely Planet Guide to the Middle of Nowhere, a semi-pictorial coffee table book, is a travel literature anthology with descriptive essays of quintessential wide open spaces and the "middle of nowhere" (Lonely Planet Publications, pp 170-173, October 2006).
ISBN 1741047846
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Wakhan & the Afghan Pamir

Wakhan & the Afghan Pamir, a 16-page tourism brochure with descriptive text, route information and detailed two-page route map, published by the Aga Khan Foundation-Afghanistan (June 2006).

Read more about our activities in the Wakhan Corridor and the Afghan Pamir.

2005 Highlights

John Mock and Kimberley O'Neil returned to Wakhan for the second consecutive summer. They worked as consultants for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and Aga Khan Foundation-Afghanistan producing a report, Tourism Promotion in Wakhan District, Badakhshan, Afghanistan (Kabul, Afghanistan, November 2005) that will be used to begin opening Wakhan and the Afghan Pamir to worldwide tourism.

At the end of their fieldwork, they trekked across the Irshad Uween, a pass from the Little Pamir to the Chapursan Valley in Pakistan's Northern Areas, their second consecutive legal international border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan made with the full permission of both governments.

2004 Highlights

Recipients of 2004 Shipton/Tilman Grant

John Mock and Kimberley O'Neil traveled to Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. Their successful expedition to the source of the Oxus River in the Wakhjir Valley and across the Dilisang Pass to Misgar in Pakistan was supported by the 2004 GORE-TEX Brand ® Shipton/Tilman Grant awarded by W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. Read the expedition report, or read it on W.L. Gore's / WINDSTOPPER ® Adventure Diaries. Play the expedition slide show.

2002 Highlights

Winners of the 2002 National Outdoor Book Award

John Mock and Kimberley O'Neil were awarded the 2002 National Outdoor Book Award in the Outdoor Adventure Category for the 1st edition of Hiking in the Sierra Nevada.

2000 Highlights

Recipients of 2000 Shipton/Tilman Grant

John Mock and Kimberley O'Neil completed a successful trekking expedition to the Oprang Valley in the northern Karakoram Range of Pakistan's Northern Areas. They trekked more than 250 kilometers, crossed five different 5,000-meter passes, and traversed six different glaciers. The expedition met its three proposed objectives:

• to cross the Mai Dur Pass, linking Qachqar-e-dur and Ghuzherav Mai Dur, which had been crossed by westerners only twice in the twentieth century;
• to reconnoiter and cross two previously unknown passes over the watershed between South Asia and Central Asia linking the Ghidims Valley, a tributary of the Ghuzherav Valley with the Sher Ilaw Valley, a tributary of the Oprang Valley that had never been visited by any westerner nor any woman; and
• to reach the Oprang Valley, which had previously been visited only once by a westerner in 1934.