Franc Shor

The only published account of any Westerners crossing the Dilisang Pass is an accidental crossing by Jean and Franc Shor more than fifty years ago. Franc Shor, a former Associate Editor of National Geographic, and Jean Shor, a husband-and-wife team, were photographer/writers who National Geographic described as "the first Westerners to fully explore the mountainous Wakhan Corridor … " Their journey is recounted in "We Took the High Road in Afghanistan," National Geographic, November 1950 and in Jean Bowie Shor's After You Marco Polo. The Shors traveled through Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor and had intended to exit the Wakhan by crossing the Wakhjir Pass into China, but were turned back short of the pass by armed conflict and, when Franc Shor became seriously ill, were evacuated by Kyrgyz nomads over the high and difficult Dilisang Pass into Pakistan.