The Source of the Oxus River:
A Journey to the Wakhan Pamir & Across
Dilisang Pass to Misgar
(July-August 2004)
“There are few treasures of more lasting worth than the experiences of a way of life that is in itself wholly satisfying. Such, after all, are the only possessions of which no fate, no cosmic catastrophe can deprive us; nothing can alter the fact if for one moment in eternity we have really lived.” Eric Shipton
John Mock PhD and Kimberley O’Neil, a husband-and-wife team, are consultants, award-winning guidebook authors, and avid mountain explorers based in Yosemite National Park.
They have consulted on tourism development and promotion, ecotourism, biodiversity conservation, parks and protected area management, and wildlife conservation in northern Pakistan, Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and the Afghan Pamir for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Aga Khan Foundation (Afghanistan), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), IUCN-The World Conservation Union, and the Snow Leopard Conservancy.
For fifteen years, they coauthored and contributed to several trekking, hiking and travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet Publications and received a National Outdoor Book Award.
Their love of mountains extends from the Sierra Nevada to Pakistan and Afghanistan where they have reconnoitered new trekking routes and crossed dozens of major passes and glaciers in the Karakoram, Hindukush and Pamir during the past thirty years, logging more than 10,000 kilometers, 60 passes, and 50 glacier traverses. Two of their expeditions were supported by Shipton-Tilman grants from W.L. Gore & Associates.
John Mock, Ph.D., is a South Asian scholar and anthropological linguist who specializes in South Asian languages and literature. His area of expertise is Wakhi language and culture, and the folklore of the Pamir / Hindukush / Karakoram / Himalaya ethnolinguistic region. His main research is on the oral traditions of the Wakhi people of northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and he has received major support from the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship program, the Christensen Fund, and the Fulbright Senior Scholar program. He taught Urdu and Hindi at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Please see their Consulting Services, and John Mock’s curriculum vitae and Kimberley O’Neil’s résumé to learn more.