We are delighted to announce that the Champions of the Golden Valley film, which tells the story of skiing in Afghanistan, and which we helped organise logistics for, is now Emmy award winning.
It was a real pleasure to guide the film crew around a country we are so passionate about and showcase the wonderful work of the Bamyan Alpine Ski Club.
The fantastic film is now available to stream on the Olympics website, giving you an insight into rural Afghanistan and the grassroots skiing community there.
Untamed Borders assisted the team in the planning for the filming project and provided on the ground assistance, guiding the crew around Afghanistan, and helped to source the locations and people who featured in the final film.
For many people, Afghanistan is not the first place that comes to mind when thinking about ski travel. Yet the central highlands of Bamyan are home to vast open slopes, remote valleys, traditional villages and a winter landscape that feels completely unlike commercial resorts found elsewhere in the world.
Skiing here is not about lifts, groomed pistes or après-ski culture. It’s about adventure, exploration and connection with a place that few outsiders have the chance to enjoy in this way. The area is one of many places to visit in Afghanistan, which offers a different kind of tourism experience – one shaped by raw human interactions and unspoiled landscapes, away from hordes of tourists.
You can enjoy this unique skiing environment on our annual Afghanistan ski tour. Untamed Borders was the original ski tour company to Afghanistan, taking group and private guests skiing in the country since 2011.
On the trip, you not only enjoy an adventurous backcountry skiing adventure, but also spend time enjoying a beautiful part of Afghanistan, meet its communities and visit notable sites around Bamyan.
Set among high mountains and wide valleys, it has long been an important crossroads in the region’s history. Once part of the Silk Road, the area was a meeting point for traders, pilgrims, monks and travellers moving between Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. Today, it remains one of the most distinctive places to visit in Afghanistan.
Bamyan is perhaps best known internationally for the niches that once housed the giant Buddhas of Bamyan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a reminder of the region’s rich and diverse history. They were sadly blown up by the Taliban in 2011, but visitors can still explore the ancient caves networks and get a glimpse into the area’s Buddhist past..
On our Afghanistan ski tours, you’ll learn, first hand, more about the grassroots skiing project in the nation, where some people ski on wooden skis. You will have a chance to take part in the mixed-ability Afghan Peaks Ski Race, which brings together Afghans and tourists.
Skiing is playing an important role in Bamian in the modern era, not only providing an outlet for sport and companionship, but also employment.
A wooden ski making industry has sparked up in the mountains, providing work for Afghan carpenters, who craft the skis, which are then provided for Afghans to use. This scheme has created an important source of employment in a part of the world where opportunities can be few.
The Bamyan Alpine Ski Club also offers ski training sessions to 100s of young people each year, inspiring a future generation of Afghan skiers and helping to boost prospects in the most deprived nation in Central Asia.
If Afghanistan travel isn’t on the cards for you at the moment, then you can still support this vital club by becoming an international member. The proceeds from the membership scheme go directly towards developing the ski training programme in the country.
Afghan ski guides are also trained up as part of the work in the region and the Bamyan Alpine Ski Club provides safety and inputs avalanche reduction measures, while also educating people who live in the mountains.
Champions of the Golden Valley gives you an insight into these projects and has won an array of awards around the world, with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Documentary (Long), the latest big scoop.
The Emmy recognition is a testament to both the quality of the filmmaking and the compelling stories of the people featured in the documentary. We are proud to have played a small role in helping bring these stories to a global audience and to have supported a project that shines a positive light on Afghanistan and its people.
The success of the Afghan ski project demonstrates how tourism and outdoor sport can have a positive impact on the communities they operate in. It also brings together different cultures over a shared passion and is a vital cultural exchange, especially in a country such as Afghanistan.
If you want to visit Afghanistan, but skiing isn’t your thing, Untamed Borders also offers a full range of Afghan groups tours, including 16 Afghanistan cultural trips and 10-day Afghanistan tours. Every year we also take groups to trek in the Wakhan Corridor as part of our pioneering Afghanistan tourism offer.
For more information about our group and private trips and to find out more about travelling to Afghanistan, please email – info@untamedborders.com.