Perceptive Travel

Menu

• HOME
• ISSUE
• ABOUT
• OFFERS
• ARCHIVES
• CONTACT
• BLOG

Crossing the Creases of Wild Kyrgyzstan — Page 2
By Tim Leffel

As usual, the payoff is a rich one. Bright snowy peaks loom around us, making us feel very tiny on our patches of grass. What we call mountains where I grew up in Virginia would barely rate as hills here. In Kyrgyzstan, there are some 100 peaks above 4,000 meters and since we’re often climbing almost that high to cross passes, every day we get the kind of view that would normally be the one great highlight of a normal trek.

This “easier day” still turns out to involve almost eight hours of being on the move. I’m starting to feel more acclimatized and moving up the slopes more quickly, but I’m still the last guy to roll into Ak-Suu Arashan guesthouse village. I join the beer and backgammon party and notice electrical outlets with multiple devices plugged into them. For only the second time in three days, we see a few other travelers. There’s a wait at the hot springs pools where everyone wants the chance to soak their sore muscles.

If you’re looking for open spaces and time to think in solitude, the mountains of Kyrgyzstan are a great place to hike. Aside from the occasional other trekking group and the guesthouse workers, we won’t see a woman until the end of Day 6. The local men aren’t exactly swarming the hills either. Each day we run across one or two shepherds, just a man and his dog with dozens of cows, horses, or goats. Perhaps as a result, the animals are more curious than afraid. Horses come right up and sniff around, as if looking for a treat, while cows lock their gaze on us like a group of Indian men staring at a blonde tourist.

Sliding in the Scree for a Payoff Panorama

Our short dose of civilization is supremely satisfying, with a bench to sit on at dinner and a real bed to sleep on at night. The pleasant walk through evergreens and over creeks the next morning keeps the comfortable vibe going until we come to the start of our 1,500-meter climb. After a first rise and an approach to snow passes, we are faced with the steepest, most menacing incline we’ve seen on the trip. It’s nothing but dirt and scree all the way into the blue sky.

We see hikers coming down it, preceded by the sound of a thousand little stones rolling down below them. The trick is to find a tiny foothold from a previous person who went up so there’s a place to get a toe in, much as a rock climber looks for something to hold onto for each move upward.

It’s hard to imagine the sublime beauty that waits at the top. “That’s the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen,” says another man in my group and I don’t take that lightly. He lives near Banff in Alberta and has hiked every trail in that region of the Rocky Mountains. Stretched out before us are jagged peaks covered with snow, a dramatic glacier in a distant valley, and bright blue Ala-Kol lake encircled by rocky cliffs. At this lake where the only way in or out is via treacherous passes, there’s no livestock to be seen.

Our goal is a rare flat spot by the lake that’s going to be several miles in the distance. To get there we need to navigate a slippery dirt path, hop across a field of boulders, then alternate between those two options before hitting some grass. It’s a daunting thought, so I throw a few snowballs first to lighten the mood, a prelude to the sub-freezing temps we’ll experience when the sun dips behind the mountains.

The lake is as stunning in the morning beside us as it was from above the afternoon before. I think back on my usual mornings at home and how busy they are with things that don’t really matter in the end. Here there are no social media feeds to check, no e-mails to answer, nobody else’s agenda to address. I’ve already noticed that my standing heart rate is way down and it’s not just from the exercise. I haven’t pulled out my reading glasses once and my eyes are relishing the break from glowing screens.

Pushing Forward Through 40,000 Steps

My body is adapting and I feel like whatever the mountains throw at me, it can’t be harder than what we’ve done already. I ascend the ridiculously steep parts more easily and let my hiking boots slide down tumbling rocks on the downhills like they’re going for a ride. I still manage to lose my water bottle along the way after a slip though and my friend’s Nikon goes tumbling down a steep hill like a stone. He picks it up, finds a few viewfinder cracks, and starts snapping photos again.

Our day’s reward is a panorama starring three peaks above 5,100 meters. After passing the 15-kilometer mark in the flat valley below I’m still feeling strong. “Where are we camping?” I ask our guide.

“Up there,” he says, pointing to a mountain in front of us. “We walk 22 kilometers tomorrow,” he says, “so tonight we camp up closer to the pass.”

Deflated, we shuffle onward. The porters in their 20s and my fellow hikers in their 30s are going more quickly than me as we climb another two hours straight to the high pasture where we’ll stop.

On the last day we cross our final pass and descend into a more popular valley for hiking. We see a couple dozen foreigners, a few shepherds and horses, and an actual local woman. We arrive at the yurt camp where our ride is going to meet us, nine hours after we ate breakfast. I drop my daypack, stretch out on the grass, and feel my feet throbbing.

As I look at the evergreen trees and steep cliffs looming above me though, I smile with the kind of satisfaction you only get from meeting a challenge that seemed impossible before. Perhaps since I crossed eight mountain passes in my fifth decade of life, and gave up the internet for a week only after constant connectivity became a norm, I appreciate both much more.

There are more primal thoughts pushing those aside though. For now, I really want a hot shower, a cold beer, and something to sit on besides the ground.

If You Go:

It’s tough to line up hiking trips in Kyrgyzstan in advance online and most people find their trekking outfitters locally by word of mouth. Printed trekking maps should be in the Karakol Tourism office by the time you read this, however, and the personnel there can help visitors find a guide, porters, or horses for a trek. Most companies have tent and sleeping bag rentals available. On some short routes there are yurt camps to stay in. For more info see the trekking section of the site at Discover Kyrgyzstan.

This trip was made possible by the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Editor Tim Leffel splits his time between Guanajuato, Mexico and Tampa, Florida. He is the author of five travel books, including A Better Life for Half the Price, and has run the Cheapest Destinations Blog since 2003.

Return to Page 1

Related Features:
The Mountain Men Who Don't Exist in Kyrgyzstan - Kirsten Koza
Hugging the Knees of the Himalayas on a Nepal Tea House Trek Tim Leffel
No Country for Honest Men - Marco Ferrarese
Both Sides of the Water: Two Faces of Kyrgyzstan's Lake Issyk Kul Laurence Mitchell


See other Asia travel stories from the archives