Last winter, snowboard photographer Sam Mellish travelled to Central Asia, armed only with his camera and a sense of adventure. These pictures tell the tale of his incredible journey

It’s not the obvious snowboard trip, but in late February last year I found myself in Uzbekistan.

On a 14-day independent visit, I planned to trace the ancient Silk Routes from Samarkand to access lesser-known ski resorts east of Tashkent, deep in the Tian Shan mountain range.

Speaking neither Uzbek nor Russian, with no phrasebook, arriving alone in a bitterly cold and grey Tashkent, my trip began in trepidation…