Shirkent National Park. Shirkent valley situated on south part of Hisssar mountain range. As a national park Shikent was established in 21st may 1991 by the government of Tursunzoda region in order to protect & preserve the Geno fund, unique fauna and flora of the Shirkent, plus in addition to it, to arrange eco-tour in that valley. Another trigger for tourist for this Shirkent is three unique objects of footprints sites of these areas. Information: The wild life of Shirkent is diverse and in Shirkent is 150 type of mammals, different type of rodents, even snow leopard used to habitat there, wolfs, brown bear, different birds, falcon, swallowtail, rare butterflies and some of this spices are in Red book of Tajikistan . In Shirkent there is three inanimate nature objects referring to these category, geological, hydrological and glaciological. Tours: Shirkent is quite popular among locals and expats that live and work in Dushanbe. They prefer to see those dinosaur sites where these objects lined in different zone. First location of these giant footprints on the right bank of the river few meteres from Shirkent village. These footprint was on the surface of limestone. The length of the footprint is 0.5m, these are average, the width up to 30cm and the step length of some Shirkent footprint is 75cm. These sort of footprints almost known to other places, the few footprints were found in Kazakhstan & in northern Pakistan but they are a bit different from Shirkent footprints. The Shirkent footprints are from the Theropoda and Macropodosaurus Gravit (lit.heavykangroo-anteater). The second group of Shirkent Dinosaur footprints 5 km inside the gorge, not easy to find it, near the watershed on its left side. These group of footprint is from a Tridactylous and size of the footprints varies between 50cm to 65cm long, width is around 45cm. The third group of footprint is near the Pashmi Kuhna village and has these are from Tridactylous too although the size is bigger than the rest of Shirkents Dinosaur footprint, some are 70cm long and 60cm wide and the depth from ground is 10cm. The structure of Shirkent mountains is very unique and million years ago some geological formation happened and it got unusual structure and it seems that someone shaped them like sculpture, and also they are quite colorful and red colour is more dominating in them. For more options for hiking further in this areas please click here? How to get there? In Dushanbe there is two type of vehicles go there, bus ( for that you should go to different station ( Asia Express terminal, buy ticket inside their office and wait when its get full booked), 2nd option is go to Zarnisor car station where many private taxi drivers get passengers to Tursunzoda city, they charge 20 somoni per seat. Get to Tursunzoda car station, where local taxi drivers will take you to Shirkent village, they will charge you around 10/15 somoni. Important notes: The last stop is near Shirkent National park office, unfortunately its empty nobody is there, don’t go further along the road there is border military base, where soldiers patrolling those areas, so you will take detour to right side of the Shirkent valley, also its difficult to find those footprint, best way to hire guide or at least locals who may know the footprints. Maximum hiking net is 4 hours. Distance from Tursunzoda is 38km, from Dushanbe 100km. Option to extend your trekking: There possibilities From Shirkent valley lake further up to Pashmi Khuhna village further up to Payron lake and from there through Mura pass 3790m, down to Saratog village, ( Ayni distrct), 6km down Iskandarkul lake. For more infor on Saratoq click here...