Pakistan Archives | The Land West of Long Mountain Project

The Fabled Land of the Three Frontiers

“From dark to dawn and dawn to dark again. At night, he wakes in dark and, straining his face against the hood, he believes he sees starlight. Dawn, and they have him up on his feet, walking. Finally, on that afternoon, they reach the foot of the snow mountains. The fabled land of the three frontiers, where the Pamirs and the Karakorum meet the Hindu Kush at the westernmost end of the Himalaya on the roof of the world and the mightiest mountain ranges on earth wed and become one.

Their journey has ended, though his odyssey into the frontier of his true country has only begun.”

The Frontier of Our True Country

“From dark to dawn and dawn to dark again. At night, he wakes in dark and, straining his face against the hood, he believes he sees starlight. Dawn, and they have him up on his feet, walking. All day they cross a vast and awesome land. In his vision, the land is the earth at the dawn of creation, back in the beginning, when light and darkness still ranged over the face of the earth.” So begins “The Frontier of Our True Country,” a story of war, flight, travel and transformation out of the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan.

Journey with a boy, a mule, a band of Pashtuns, and an American soldier, a deserter, to the fabled land of the three frontiers, where the Pamirs and the Karakorum meet the Hindu Kush at the westernmost end of the Himalaya on the roof of the world and the mightiest mountain ranges on earth wed and become one. An elemental land where the sky seems eternally sprent with stars and existence brushes up against the mythical, the lyrical and the violent and even human drama seems wed to the timeless course of a river.

Portraits of Asia

In this collection of photographs taken by writer Joseph Modugno during his decade of travels (2009-2019) in Western China, Central and Southeast Asia, and the Greater Himalaya, the beauty and diversity of the myriad peoples of Asia are visible in vibrant mosaics that capture character, charisma and charm with a wealth of color and light. Join Joseph and The Land West of Long Mountain Project on a photographic journey and decade-spanning odyssey through the hinterlands and heartlands of Asia in search of our common humanity and in pursuit of the sublime on earth.