The Wakhan Corridor. Photo: Tom Hartley CC-BY-SA-3.0

A British adventurer will lead an all-women team to some of the remotest mountains of war-torn Afghanistan.

Suzy Madge’s expedition will help raise money for Mountain Unity, which aims to support local communities through developing mountaineering in the area to provide employment and income for them. Her sister Carole Madge and Italian ice-climber Anna Torretta will join the team as they undertake a ski mountaineering venture into the remote area in the extreme North-East of the country.

The expedition will go deep into the Wakhan Corridor, a thin mountainous strip of Afghanistan jutting eastwards which separates Pakistan from Tajikistan. The Qala-e Hurst Valley, venue for the trip, is a glaciated valley east of the main Hindu Kush range in Afghanistan.

Suzy Madge will lead the ski mountaineering trip

The area has largely escaped the war ravages for which Afghanistan is better known.

A spokesperson for the expedition said: “Suzy and her all-female expedition team are keen to promote the fact that there is more to Afghanistan than Helmand Province and the Taliban, and they are combining their next personal challenge with wanting to raise awareness about the beauty of a war-torn country which boasts some of the most dramatic and breathtaking mountain landscape in the world.

“The tourist trade in this area is starting to slowly redevelop, with responsible exploration and the pioneering of new routes helping to create a sustainable tourism industry while improving the quality of life for the 13,500 people that exist in poverty in the Wakhan corridor.”

The expedition team plans to leave London in May, flying to Dushanbe the Tajikistan capital. A 20-hour bus journey will take them to Ishkashim, from where they will cross the river Oxus and the border into Afghanistan. From Qala Hurst Village, a two-day walk will take them to base camp at 4,500m.

The next 10 days will be spent ski mountaineering the Qala-e Hurst Valley which very few outsiders have ever visited. A visit to the Kezget valley is also possible. Many of the peaks in the area are unclimbed and even unnamed.

Film-maker Suzy Madge’s Skiing the Sky Below formed part of the Best of the Fest at last year’s Kendal Mountain Film Festival. She has also taken part in the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara. She was also the first British woman to ski from the summit of Cho Oyu.

She formed the all-woman adventure racing team Lipstick Blondes in 2004.