Jan Bakker, Dutch by origin, is an expedition leader, guidebook author and route developer living in the northwest of Scotland. Notable expeditions include treks in the Afghan Wakhan Corridor, a traverse across the highest peaks in Azerbaijan, skiing and climbing in the Zagros Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan and an ascent of the 7,105 metre high Korzhenevskaya in the High Pamirs. He has lived in Tunisia, Lebanon and Uganda where he worked on projects to promote outdoor sports and put underrated destinations on the map.
In Tunisia Jan co-founded the Zaghouan Mountain Film Festival with the aim to inspire local youth to spend time in the great outdoors. In the same region he helped develop rock climbing areas and he has written a hiking guide to Jebel Zaghouan.
In eastern Uganda he trained aspiring hiking guides and explored new hiking routes on the volcanic monoliths of Karamoja. In the southwest of Uganda he pioneered a multi-displine human-powered route across three national parks covering 250 kilometres on foot, by bike and packraft.
But Jan’s big passion is Tajikistan. Since 2009 he has been exploring trails in the northern ranges and Pamirs of Tajikistan. He is the co-author of the Cicerone guidebook Trekking and Tajikistan and creator of the Pamir Trail, a 1,310km-long hiking route spanning the entire length of Tajikistan’s mountain systems. Almost each year he returns to find new route connections across undocumented passes and valleys.
