Kyrgyzstan: Trekking Paradise

Karakol, July 7, 2019

Terri and I are in the small town of Karakol, in the northeastern corner of Kyrgyzstan, grateful to be typing on a real keyboard in an internet cafe rather than painfully tapping away on a smartphone screen. We've been in Kyrgyzstan for three weeks, and it's been a whirlwind of trekking and travel.  We have a couple of days off before our next trip, a ten-day trek up the mighty Inylchek Glacier, and so we finally have a chance to catch our breaths and recapitulate our two-footed adventures thus far.

Alameddin Introduction

We arrived in Kyrgyzstan's appealing capital Bishkek three weeks ago, on June 16, and after a day spent catching up on sleep after the inevitable overnight flight to get here from Tbilisi via Istanbul, we slung our packs into a taxi and headed off into the big mountains on the edge of town.  The Kyrgyzstan Range which runs east-west just south of the city is one of the less impressive mountain ranges that dissect this high-altitude country, but it still boasts a number of 4000-metre peaks and one over 5000 metres; these mountains, taller than the Alps, are just par for the course here in Central Asia.  We were dropped off at the end of the road at the northern end of the Alameddin valley, put on our packs and started hiking south.  The plan was just to test out our gear and our bodies; it had been the better part of a year since we carried heavy packs (during our trek from Omalo to Tusheti last August) and we needed to be sure that all equipment and body parts were working after a less active school year than usual.

The packs certainly felt heavy as we tottered off along the path, but we managed to make our way south for 4 hours.  It was pure joy to walk through the plentiful wildflowers, through patches of Tien Shan spruce and juniper scrub, and across grassy meadows full of horses and cows. We had no particular destination; there was a valley junction on the map that might have made a good campground, but before we got to that point, gathering black clouds made us decide to pitch our tent in a convenient meadow before rain set in.  No sooner had we done so than the first drops began to fall, and we spent an hour in the tent reading before the rain abated and we emerged to cook dinner.  The view from our campsite was dramatic, up to a nearby peak slightly higher than the Mont Blanc.  We dined, then sat outside in the gloaming sipping whisky as the light faded from the sky.  It felt good to be far from the classroom, only 4 days since the end of the school year.

The next morning we eyeballed the low clouds shrouding peaks to the south and decided not to hike any further south, but rather to head back to town.  It was easier heading downhill (although the previous day we had only gained about 400 metres), although we did manage to lose the trail once and ended up bashing our way through dense juniper to find it again.  We both enjoyed having the nomad's freedom to camp wherever practical (one of the joys of trekking in Kyrgyzstan), and we returned to the roadhead and its collection of weekend houses and holiday yurts in good spirits.

That afternoon we realized that our plan to trek along the Inylchek Glacier was not going to be served by staying in Bishkek any longer.  The glacier lies in a sensitive border area near the Chinese frontier, and Western travellers require a border travel permit that takes quite a long time to obtain (somewhere between two weeks and one month).  A bit of research convinced us that the best place to get our permits was in Karakol, so after talking to Ak-Sai Travel, who run a string of tented camps for trekkers along the glacier, we resolved to head to Karakol the next day.

A Rugged Introduction to the Terskey Ala-Too

A six-hour mashrutka ride the next day brought us to Karakol, the epicentre of tourism in northeastern Kyrgyzstan.  We drove out of the lowlands north of Bishkek, in which the land slopes gradually downhill into the vast Kazakh steppe, past a string of old Soviet-era industrial towns along the Chuy River, past the ancient Burana Tower (the ruined stump of a medieval minaret from the Karakhanid Silk Road town of Balasagun) and up the narrow gorge leading to the ethereal high-altitude basin of beautiful Lake Issyk-Kul.  We trundled around the north shore of the lake, marvelling at the expanse of azure water reflecting glaciated peaks beyond.  I had been to Karakol twice before, in 2004 and again in 2012, and I've always liked the place.  We settled into our hotel, the welcoming and comfortable Madanur, and then raced off to start the process of getting our border permits.  Ibrahim, the well-informed, enthusiastic young man running Visit Karakol, took our paperwork and promised to have the permits (not just for the Inylchek trek, but also for a possible later horse trek in Naryn district) ready in ten days.  

In Bishkek we had invested in a series of trekking maps, and poring over the Karakol map that evening, we found an intriguing overnight trek marked as Alternate Arashan leaving from the Karakol ski area and emerging in the next major valley to the east, the Arashan.  We still wanted to start gently into our Kyrgyz trekking, so we packed up some of the impressive quantity of trekking food that we had managed to acquire during our short sojourn in the country, put much of our luggage into storage at our hotel, and set off on the morning of Friday, June 21, well fortified by the Madanur's breakfast buffet.  After a short taxi ride (too short; our driver dropped us short of where he should have), we shouldered backpacks and headed off uphill along the road to the ski resort.  We eventually branched off to the left and headed up a fairly idyllic valley dotted with the yurts of families who were spending the summer in high-altitude pastures (jailoos) with their flocks of sheep, cows and horses.  The views got grander as we made our way slowly uphill, feeling both the weight of our packs and the thinness of the air as we approached 3000 metres above sea level (we had slept at 1800 metres in Karakol).  We were making our way towards the north side of the Terim Tor massif, a glaciated group of mountains which attains an altitude 4273 metres at Przhevalsky Peak.  We were the only trekkers to be seen; the vast majority of Western trekkers in Karakol end up hiking south of the Terim Tor to Lake Ala Kol, out of our sight.  We found an idyllic campsite atop a small hill overlooking the tumbling river and spent the night very enjoyably around the camp stove and atop a rock, watching the last light of evening set the peaks alight and reflecting off the distant surface of Issyk Kol.  It was cold outside but we stayed warm in our beloved Big Agnes tent, cocooned in our sleeping bags.

The next day looked simple enough on our map.  We would make our way over the 3627-metre Kok Jar pass, down into the Arashan valley and then downstream to the town of Ak Suu.  We set off in good spirits and soon left the river behind where it emerged from the enormous terminal moraine of the glaciers tumbling down from Przhevalsky Peak.  We picked our way uphill, following the suggestions of the mapping app maps.me on my new smartphone; it wasn't as handy to use as my handheld Garmin GPS, but we had been unable to load Kyrgyz maps onto the Garmin, so we were using the phone instead.  It was hard to follow the trail as it ground steeply uphill, across patches of exquisitely coloured wildflowers and then through dispiriting stretches of scree that slid downhill almost as quickly as we tried to climb them.  There were larger and larger patches of residual snow that we had to cross, postholing our way up to mid-calf.  Eventually, gasping from lack of acclimatization, we reached the summit of the pass around noon.  The views back towards Przhevalsky Peak were stupendous, showing its intricate mass of glaciers and moraines.  

Looking forward, it was a bit hard to see where we needed to go, as an extensive cornice of snow still adorned the ridge.  We followed the cornice for hundreds of metres, past yet more unfamiliar hardy wildflowers clinging to the fractured rock, and finally found a place to get through.  We weren't sure which way to go, and there weren't a lot of tracks (two, to be precise) to guide us.  We ended up making the wrong choice of descent route and ended up on a very steep scree slope, punctuated by equally steep rocks, gingerly traversing and switchbacking our way downhill, trying not to fall over or twist an ankle.  It seemed to take an eternity to slither our way onto a slightly less precipitous grassy ridge that eventually led down to the floor of a verdant valley.  It was a much harder crossing than we had been led to believe, and we decided that it was because it was too early in the season; by August or September, with all the snow gone and the ground less saturated with moisture, it probably would have been a lot easier.  

We tramped along for a while, pausing for a picnic lunch, then made our way steeply down a narrow gorge lined with spruce forests to the Arashan Valley.  We turned left and started the long trudge out to a roadhead.  The valley was spectacular, with a raging mountain torrent tumbling relentlessly towards the Issyk Kol basin.  Our legs were much sorer and more tired than we had anticipated, and the 13-kilometre slog out to Ak Suu did nothing to improve how they felt.  The scenery was dramatic as we tramped along a jeep track that was, in places, almost undriveable.  By the time we made it to the town of Ak Suu, we were both tired and ready for a lift, provided by a village taxi driver. We drove to Karakol and went straight to dinner at a shashlyk restaurant to help our battered legs recover.  It had been an unexpectedly tough couple of days, but we had survived.

Five Days in June:  A Mountain Idyll

After a day off in Karakol, spent sleeping, eating and resupplying (and celebrating Terri's birthday), we headed off again with our backpacks on Monday, June 24.  This time our packs were full to overflowing with food as we planned to be away for five days.  We caught a taxi an hour out of town to the small former mining town of Jyrgalan, now reinventing itself as a centre for trekking and backcountry skiing.  We bought an immense loaf of bread, tied it to the outside of Terri's pack, and set off upstream along the Jyrgalan River.  The sky was blue, the valley was luxuriantly green and alive with flowers, butterflies and birds, and it felt a privilege to be out among the mountains of the Terskey Ala-Too, the branch of the Tien Shan that runs south of Lake Issyk Kul.  We made our way gradually up the valley to another campsite of bucolic perfection, set up our tent and set about brewing up tea and bouillon to rehydrate, and lentil stew to replenish our bodies.

That trek stands out for the variety of valleys and landscapes that we traversed.  The second day saw us pop over the 3467-metre Terim Tor Pass, a much gentler proposition than the Kok Jar, and descend steeply to the Turgon Ak Suu River, along which a major road leads south towards the Inylchek Glacier.  We descended to the main river, then waded across at a shallow ford, guided by a ten-year-old boy on a horse.  We debated staying the night at lower altitude, but it was full of yurts and herds, while the lower slopes of our next pass looked invitingly empty.  An hour of stiff walking brought us into a grassland thickly carpeted with exuberant wildflowers, and we camped on their spongy, forgiving surface.  While deflating her air mattress that morning, Terri's air mattress had seen its air valve disintegrate, and despite some jury-rigged repairs, Terri was concerned that it wouldn't hold, so she was glad to have soft ground beneath the tent.  We cooked up some intriguing noodles and dehydrated soy pseudo-meat and had a surprisingly satisfying meal.

Our third day was a major scenic highlight.  Terri woke up to find that her air mattress valve had held, so we crossed our fingers that it would continue to work.  We made our way over our second pass, a broad gentle saddle at 3362 metres called the Boz Uchuk-Ashuu Pass.  We were starting to feel more acclimatized to altitude and found the climb much easier than on previous passes.  At the top we stopped to watch a herd of horses glide past at a canter, then chatted with a Kyrgyz herder on a magnificent horse who was keeping an eye on a flock of nearly a thousand sheep.  We descended slightly, then angled upstream towards a small glacial lake on whose shore we stopped for a very scenic picnic.  A couple of hours of traversing and climbing led us around into an adjacent valley and the lower of the two Boz Uchuk lakes, a small peanut-shaped glacial tarn at 3400 metres above sea level.  We put up our tent, then waited out an afternoon thunderstorm.  When we emerged, it was to a lake like polished glass, giving perfect reflections of the 4463-metre mountains behind.  It was a place of breathtaking natural beauty, and we felt lucky to have the place entirely to ourselves.

The next morning we breakfasted, packed up our camp and then set off carrying only daypacks for the upper Boz Uchuk lake, a few kilometres up the valley across a messy moraine.  When we got there, we were surprised to find it still frozen, although it was only 100 metres higher than where we had slept.  We found a small patch of open water and took more mirror photos of the peaks behind, then returned to our packs.

We had hoped to make our way across two different passes that day, but the combination of our morning sidetrip and late afternoon thunderstorms put paid to our plans.  We climbed over a steep spur, around and along a rock-strewn valley and then up over a 3516-metre pass, descending into the fourth major valley of the trek.  From the top of our pass, we could look ahead to another glacial tarn, our objective, but above it a mass of dark clouds threatened a huge thunderstorm, so it was time to change plans.  We descended to the Jergez Valley and put up our tent on a small island, surrounded by a herd of magnificent horses and foals.  After the rainstorm had passed, we spent an idyllic evening watching the horses slowly graze their way towards us in the magical late light.

The final day was spent on the obligatory trudge downstream towards a road under blazing sunshine.  The Jergez Valley ended up being our favourite valley as it was broad, surrounded by dramatic rock ramparts, full of horses and wildflowers and impassable to vehicles.  It took five and a half hours of strolling to reach tiny Kara Kyz (where there were no lifts to be found) and then out to the main road at Jergez, where a hitch-hike with a local Coca Cola sales rep, a marshrutka and a local taxi got us back to our base at the Madanur.  That evening we both felt out of sorts at dinner, and slept very poorly; I think we both had a touch of heat exhaustion from tramping all day under a hot sun.

An Abortive Glacier Trip

This time we took two days off between treks, and we were glad that we did, as the first day was spent largely sleeping and rehydrating.  Monday, July 1, Canada Day on the other side of the world, found us in a taxi heading up the Karakol Valley for another planned five-day expedition.  This time the heavy pack felt much lighter as my body finally seemed to have adapted to trekking.  We caught a taxi out of town, then turned our faces upstream along the Karakol River.  This valley is much narrower and rockier and less bucolically perfect than the Jergez, and it didn't please our souls quite as much.  There were a lot of other trekkers along the road, including a group from Canada.  We made our way uphill beside a river that was running very high with glacial runoff, filling the valley with its clamorous descent.  After a roadside lunch, we crossed the river on a precarious footbridge and began the steep climb to Sirota Camp.  It took longer than anticipated to reach the camp, along a vertiginous path that crossed a rather tricky boulder field.  Sirota is one of the very few spots along the valley with both flat land and water.  The trek to Lake Ala Kol, 600 vertical metres above the camp, is the most popular trek out of Karakol, and the campsite was full of tents.  After five days on our previous trek without seeing another trekker, this was an unwelcome development.  No sooner had we put up our tent than a hailstorm hammered down and we waited it out inside our tent.

That evening we cooked up a pasta feast, and ended up in a long discussion with an Aussie couple who have worked in rural development in Kyrgyzstan for the past 15 years.  Both of them were full of insight into modern-day Kyrgyzstan, while Graham, the husband, also proved to be a big fan of medieval Silk Road history; he and I had a long conversation about Timur, Genghis Khan, the il-Khans of Iran, the Karakhanids, William of Rubruck and other historical minutiae.  The orange evening light on nearby peaks was particularly beautiful that evening as Terri and I sipped Ani brandy atop a convenient boulder.

We were up relatively early the next morning, woken by early risers in the closely packed tent city.  We left our wet tent standing to dry, ate quickly and then set off uphill towards Ala Kol lightly laden for a day trip.  It was a long, steep climb, but without heavy packs we made good time, taking two hours to get to the lake, up a dramatic river that gushed out from underneath giant neves.  Ala Kol was still largely frozen, so there were no mirror reflection pictures to be had, but it was magnificent nonetheless.  We ate delicious dried apricots overlooking the ice surface, then turned around and picked our way gingerly down the path back to camp, via another meeting with Graham, Beth and their children.  Knocking down our dry tent, we packed up quickly and headed down to the main Karakol Valley for a riverside lunch.  We turned upstream and spent a surprisingly long time walking a few kilometres up towards the source of the raging torrent at the Karakol Glacier.  It took us a while to find a good place to camp, but eventually Terri scouted out a spot atop a bluff that made a fine base.

The plan was to spend three nights camped there, with one day devoted to relaxation and another to be spent walking up towards the snout of the glacier 8 kilometres up the valley.  We managed to spend an intensely enjoyable day off on July 3rd, sketching wildflowers, bathing in the frigid river, cooking up delicious pancakes, reading and then sheltering in the tent with our books during an afternoon rainstorm.  The rain lasted for hours, but we managed eventually to get out to cook during a respite.  That night the rain continued off and on throughout the night, and we woke up to further rain and low-hanging clouds.  We decided that going upstream towards the glacier would be futile, as there would be no views, so instead we packed up our sodden tent in the rain and walked out.  Luckily we caught a lift just after lunch with Viktor, a genial Russian jeep driver who regaled us with tales as he wrestled his UAZ ex-Red Army jeep down some hair-raising stretches of track and eventually down to Karakol.  We were mildly disappointed not to have seen the glacier, but glad to have seen Ala Kol (and to have escaped from the crush of tourists and back into the solitude that we crave).

So far, Kyrgyzstan has been perfect for trekking:  expansive vistas, perfect spots to camp, dramatic peaks and glaciers and rivers, exquisite wildflowers and hospitable people.  On Tuesday we are off on another trek, this time not lugging our own tent, stove and food, to the foot of mighty Pik Pobedy and Khan Tengri.  I hope that we have as much fun as we've had trekking by ourselves so far!