Weather tips - Central Asia to Caucasus via Iran (Mar-Jun)

[ctwright]

Hi, we are planning on starting our travels in mid to late March for around 3 months (give or take a few weeks) from Central Asia to Iran and then the Caucasus, then heading either to Russia or Turkey to end our trip. Our rough itinerary looks something like this: Kazakhstan (Almaty and surrounds) -> Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek, Issyk Kul, Osh) -> Tajik Pamir Highway -> Dushanbe -> Uzbekistan -> Turkmen on transit visa -> Iran (around 3 weeks) -> Azer. -> Georgia -> Armenia.

Our main concern is weather. We will most likely not be doing serious multi-day treks anywhere, but we would like to do shorter 1-2 day hikes near villages in Kyrg. and TJ. Assuming we start in late March in KAZ, we would probably get to the Pamirs in April, and then do UZ and Iran in April/May, ending in the Caucasus in the summer. Would the weather in the mountains still be unsuitable for outdoor travel?

We have entertained the idea of starting in Xinjiang at around the same time, thereby shifting the entire itinerary a few weeks later to allow for warmer weather. Assuming we would then be in Iran in May/June the problem would then be the heat...

Would it therefore be advisable to start somewhere else in March? E.g. I guess we could do Iran first, then turkmen and uzbek, then the rest of the stans and across to the caucasus overland via Russia?

[bwv812]

Starting in Iran would be a much better idea.