The saint and the legends of the valley

Local tradition says the pir came to Chapursan from a place called Ghund, over toward Badakshan, and that his birth name was Muhammad Baqar; he is remembered as a wandering mystic who preached and settled here and was buried at the site now marked by the shrine. Like many mountain saints, his life was preserved not in documents but in vivid folk tales, passed down by word of mouth until researchers finally set them to paper. The stories are still told with real affection, and they are the key to reading the landscape around the ziarat.↗↗↗

The most famous tale casts Baba Ghundi as a dragon-slayer and a bringer of justice. One version has him killing a monster that terrorised a lakeside village; in another, rejected by the prosperous but sinful people of Chapursan, he is given food and shelter by a single old woman, and in answer to the valley's cruelty he summons a roaring flood of mud and boulders that buries its villages—sparing only the kind woman's house, whose site, called Kampir Dior or Kampire Dayar ('house of the old woman'), is still pointed out today. Cynical observers note that the 'flood' matches very real glacier-burst debris scattered across the upper valley, but for residents the stones and gravel are evidence of the saint's wrath, and lumps of pale rock are cheerfully shown to visitors as the dragon's bones.↗↗↗

The shrine and its miracle-stations

The building you see today was raised in 1924 under Mir Ghazin Khan, the ruler of Hunza. Inside, the tomb of the saint and his wife is kept, along with what is presented as the pir's sword. Simple, whitewashed and roofed against the mountain weather, the shrine looks deliberately humble against the bare grey rock walls behind it, and when the annual festival drapes it in coloured flags it becomes almost picture-perfect in a stark, high-altitude way.↗↗↗

The main ziarat is only the centre of a small network of holier-than-ordinary rocks spread along Chapursan, each marking a miracle. Below Yarz Rich, the shrine of Panja Shah stands bedecked in flags and shelters a stone scored with long marks said to be the saint's own hand-marks, over which devotees pour ghee as an offering. At Reshit a rock is shown bearing the imprint of his fist and horse-whip, and Kermin has its own shrine too. For an attentive visitor, these roadside sanctuaries turn the drive up the valley into a slow pilgrimage in themselves.↗↗

Near the main shrine, beside the river, a spring decorated with ibex horns yields water known as ab-e-shafa, believed to bestow health on those who drink it. The shrine's chief blessing today is said to be the gift of children to childless couples, and many come specifically to ask for it.↗

Ritual, pilgrimage and the annual festival

The rhythm of devotion here follows the mountain calendar. Devotees often arrive on a Thursday to pray on Friday, and the traditional peak of pilgrimage falls in late September and early October, when religious songs carry on through the night, goats are offered with prayers and the meat is shared out, infused with the saint's barakat, or spiritual blessing. Hundreds of pilgrims from across Gilgit-Baltistan make the journey each year for these observances.↗↗

Once a summer, the lonely pasture erupts into a three- or four-day International Baba Ghundi Festival, added to the Gilgit-Baltistan government's annual calendar in 2010. The programme mixes the sacred and the sporting: a Sufi night, polo matches, buzkashi, traditional sword-dance (niza bazi), yak races and a yak safari, tug-of-war, and shows of Wakhi folk music and food. Its real magic is the gathering it creates—the Wakhi communities of Chipursan and Gojal share ancestral ties with their kin across the border, and visitors from Afghanistan's Wakhan travel for days over glaciers and high passes, leading their animals, to attend.↗↗↗

The festival also underlines an older pattern: centuries of barter trade between the two sides of the Irshad Pass, with Afghan traders exchanging yaks, sheep and goats for goods brought up from the Pakistan side. Standing on the grassy plain at the shrine, you are at a meeting-point of valleys and countries as much as a place of worship.↗↗

Getting there and visiting

Reaching the ziarat is a real expedition and part of its appeal. From the Karakoram Highway the road climbs north into Upper Hunza (Gojal); beyond the Afiyatabad check post the route becomes a long, rough jeep track that runs west through the valley, passing Zood Khun, the last permanent village, and continuing for further hours to the shrine. The surrounding terrain grows emptier and more dramatic past the village, the kind of high, open country where marmots whistle and peaks close the horizon. Allow roughly four hours from Afiyatabad, with the final leg often needing a hired 4x4.↗↗↗

Because Chapursan sits in a restricted zone near the border, plan on paperwork and local help: bring identification, and, if you are a foreign visitor, your passport and the required permit, which you can be asked to show at the army point at the shrine and at checkpoints along the way. A licensed local guide is strongly advised, and you should confirm access and current permit requirements before setting out, since mountain routes close after rain or snow.↗↗

There are no real facilities at the shrine itself, so carry food, water and cash, and many travellers choose to sleep in a village homestay in the valley rather than at the mazar—though the wide grassy flat at the shrine makes a fine camp for those with their own gear. The site sits high above the tree line, so expect cool days and genuinely cold nights even in summer; pack warm layers. The practical visiting window is roughly June to September, when the road is open and the cross-border movement and the festival take place.↗↗

For trekkers: a base camp at the head of the valley

Beyond its religious importance, Baba Ghundi Ziarat is a well-known trailhead. It is the starting point for the demanding, roped crossing of the Chilinji Pass and the Qalander Uween, glaciated border passes that lead down toward the Karambar Valley—routes historically used by explorers such as Aurel Stein and Wilfred Thesiger. Trekkers commonly spend a night or two at the shrine's pasture to acclimatise before pushing up the moraines, and the grassy plain also offers a natural rest stop where Wakhi and Kirghiz herders from the Afghan side come to trade livestock for flour, tea and salt.↗