As my time in Kazakhstan was relatively short and the country itself was huge, I only had the chance to visit one other region besides Almaty. As you need permits for the mountainous eastern part of Kazakhstan that have to be organized far in advance, there was only one other option left for me. Close to Shymkent, the third biggest city in Kazakhstan, a national park and a nature reserve could be visited and apparently some good hikes were to be found there. Arriving in Shymkent, I did some online research first, but there were only a couple blogs that didn't focus on hiking and the official homepages of the two parks which were in Russian only. Well, not much use to me, so let's go to the tourist information to get some more details. Asking in the hotel, checking online and having a look in my guide book, I found exactly one. Unfortunately though, this one existed merely on paper and not in reality. :) Incredible as it sounds, there was no tourist information at all in a city with a million citizens. Last chance left was my hotel and the manager, as well as the lady at the reception, tried their best to help me. Eventually after about ten phone calls, they found a guide who did trekking tours in the region and he was so nice to come around to the hotel and work out an itinerary with me. It turned out that Lake Susingen in the Sayram-Ugam national park, which was one of the highlights there and the place I wanted to check out, had no water at this time of the year. :) When I understood it correctly, the water oozes away into the ground during the summer months and for sure some of it will evaporate as well due to the high temperatures, so only a little water is left at the end of summer. The guide therefore set up a four days itinerary without Lake Susingen, which firstly involved a lot of driving and secondly was way to expensive. Checking my options, I wanted to know if there was some good hiking to be done in the nature reserve. "There is only a one day hiking route and you need to go with a park ranger", was the answer. Great, that was even worse. :) Coming back to the four days itinerary, I asked if we only can focus on the two hikes in there and so the guide shortened the program, leaving me with a two days trip that involved as much hiking as possible in the Sayram-Ugam national park. While still being expensive, I could agree with that and so we met the next day in the early morning for a trip into the unknown. :)
Day 1: Sayramsu Lakes and Aksu Canyon After about two hours of driving we entered the Sayram-Ugam national park and headed for the trailhead of our first hike. We wanted to check out the two lakes of Sayramsu and we came as far as the closed gate to a resort that was exclusively for Arabian sheiks. :) Parking our car closeby, we took our daypacks, started walking and first made our way around the resort. It was a rather weird thing to see in a national park, especially because it was completely empty. Once around the resort, we followed a dirt road for a while, crossing a couple bridges and enjoying the view of the Tien Shan Mountains up ahead. A couple kilometers later we crossed another bridge and turned into a valley to our right. From there the trail slowly begun to rise. It was a gentle ascent though and being mostly in the trees it wasn't too hot to walk yet.
Piotr, my guide, was super knowledgeable and pointed out a couple tiny snakes, tracks of mountain animals and stones with marks from millions of years ago. His English was somewhat limited, but when I didn't understand, Google translate was there to help us out. :) The farther we got, the more we walked in the open and the views of the mountains around us were quite enjoyable already. Except for one other tourist, we didn't see anyone else on the trail and it was good to have some solitude after the hustle and bustle of the couple hikes I did before. Coming towards the end of the valley, the steepest slopes so far awaited us, but we overcame them soon and the first Sayramsu lake unfolded before our eyes. If you follow my blog a little bit, you know that I have seen many a mountain lake on this trip, but I had to say that this one was the clearest of them all. The bottom of the lake could be seen without any problem and the colors were once more super intense.
We sat down at the end of the lake and enjoyed a nice lunch that almost felt like home. :) Cheese, potatoes, sausage and bread made for a generous meal. According to Piotr it was about one and a half kilometer to the second lake, but 500 meters difference in altitude, so I expected some steeper slopes than before. And so it was.
Leaving the first lake behind, we came upon a rather large boulder field. While cairns marked the way in the beginning, they disappeared soon and we just made our own way, scrambling upwards from boulder to boulder. Taking a little break in the middle of the slope, I could see a nice dirt path towards my right. Hmm, why didn't we use that one? :)
Well, to be fair, the cairns and some sort of a path reappeared after the first ascent and I guess one could take both ways. While the slope leveled out a little bit, the boulders remained and it was a constant jumping across the big rocks. It was kinda fun though and the mountains ahead of us, grew more beautiful with every step.
Piotr usually walked quite far ahead of me, but now he was waiting at a specific rock and pointed to something on it. At first sight it looked like animal poo and I thought he wanted to tell me about another animal residing in the area. But at a closer look I realized that it was the remains of a coral from the primeval times, 50 million years old according to Piotr. Wow, how cool was that! The best part of an hour gone, we arrived at the second lake and this one was a true beauty as well. The lake a deep blue, the mountains around us grey, white and brown with slopes of green, red and yellow, there were so many different colors, it was a really nice sight to behold.
We took a break for about half an hour to explore the surroundings of the lake and then started to retrace our steps back to the first lake. This time though, we used the dirt path that I had seen during the ascent, as it was way easier to descend on that one. Towards the first lake, the path became more and more dusty and it was hard to find some good foothold in the loose gravel. Piotr soon started to run and this was definitely the best way to go down these slopes. :) So we both turned into trailrunners and it was good fun to descend like this. We ran whenever we came upon a steeper slope and thus had soon the best part of our descent behind us. Only when we crossed the bridge again and turned left onto the dirt road, our walk back started to drag on. Nevertheless we made it to our car in good time and before long were off to our next destination, Aksu Canyon. While I thought the canyon would be closeby, we drove for about one and a half hour until we got there. :) And to be honest, there was not that much to see. We just walked down to the canyon, took a couple pictures and walked back up again.
Somehow I was sure that there would have been nicer parts than the one we visited, but they were most probably in the nature reserve where we weren't allowed to go. Nevermind though as I enjoyed this little visit and the ride along the countryside anyway. Now we were heading to our camping spot, which at the same time was to be our trailhead for tomorrow. It was again a lot of driving and as it was late already, Piotr suggested to eat in a restaurant, rather than to cook at the camping spot later on. That was a good idea, as I was now able to eat some nice traditional Shashlik and also because we arrived at our final destination when it was dark already. Setting up the tent, a look on the clock told me it was 10 pm already and as I was tired from the long day, I went to sleep directly.
Day 2: The unknown mountain Yesterday I had asked Piotr how long we would be walking today. 10 hours he had said and as this was a surprising answer, I wasn't sure if he had understood my question. Asking him also if I had to get up early, he luckily said no and so I just slept as long as possible. :) Waking up, he was already cooking breakfast and after I packed my stuff together and prepared myself for the day, joined him at the fire. Wondering what he was cooking, he told me that this was to be our dinner. Hmm, may be we really would be walking for 10 hours. :) Nevertheless, we already had a bowl of the soup for breakfast together with some more cheese, sausage and potatoes. When we started walking I was super full and was glad to move my body a little bit. Walking along some water pipes, we entered a little canyon first and as there was no real trail and too much water, we just walked upon the pipes until we were able to cross over to the other side. :)
At the end of the canyon we turned left and a steady ascent started. While the first part was still in the shade, we came out into the sun too soon and even though it was only 10 o'clock, it was scorching hot like never before. Piotr had also told me that today there would be no path, but at least for the first ascent that wasn't true. We walked along a well maintained trail and the only challenge was to hold off all the annoying horseflies around us. The ascent took us about an hour until we reached a saddle and took a break. "Are we at the end of the trail?", I asked Piotr. "Nooo! 3 more hours to go." - "Ahhh, I see. Are you taking many tourists on this hike?", I was wondering. "Yes." - "Also western tourists?" - "No, you're the first one". :) I kinda felt honored, as he was in the business for ten years already. From the saddle there was only one way to go and we started to walk up another steady ascent. This time though, the path was not always visible and we just made our own way, sometimes on the path, sometimes through some thorny bushes. Coming to another tiny saddle the views opened up in every direction. We enjoyed a good view towards Shymkent and its surrounding villages, as well as to the mountains ahead of us and finally I also had a vague idea where our goal of today would be.
Back on the official path, the trail continued to go upwards and the only good thing about gaining height was, that the sun felt a little less stronger and the wind began to blow. After a while we left the steeper ascending slopes behind us and the trail started to lead along the mountainside. It was a fun walk now, as the slopes were more gentle, the views were great and the first signs of autumn could be seen all around us.
A couple times we had to scramble over some rocks, but besides of that we just walked steadily upwards until we reached the top of the ridge. From there we had a good view of the lowlands, the ridge itself and the surrounding mountains.
A higher mountain closeby was keeping us from enjoying the best views though and so we first made our way over there. Leaving our backpacks at the foot of the peak we both ventured out to explore the area. Scaling some other minor peaks around us, the view towards the Tien Shan Mountains was superb from everywhere. Marveling at the barren and deserted landscape, I also noticed the absolute silence, as we were the only human beings up there.
Once we had explored enough, we sat down for lunch and afterwards started to retrace our steps. Taking the same way down, Piotr was soon running again, but I took my time today. It was far too beautiful to run along the trail and I enjoyed the walk down almost more than the walk up. :) At least that was until we reached the tiny saddle again. Back in the only part where the path wasn't obvious, Piotr started again to make his own way. I just followed where ever he walked, but the further down we got, the more clear it was that we were too much to the right. Turning left, we suddenly came upon a gap that we had to cross to make it back to the first saddle. Well, it was not too much fun, scrambling over the loose scree and I was glad when we had that part behind us. Back at the saddle it was time for a break and to examine my legs, as they had been rather badly scratched by our walk through all the thorny bushes. It was nothing too bad though and we soon resumed our walk down to the little canyon. I thought that that last part would be the longest, as there were no views anymore and we were back in the "oven". But it was actually quite okay and the canyon appeared faster than expected. Back at our car, we cleaned ourselves from all the dust and then decided to drive back to Shymkent as it was too early for having dinner. Back in Shymkent, I said goodbye to Piotr and I was thankful that he took me out for this lovely two days. Even though it was expensive, it was the right decision and I was glad that I had been able to check out something else of Kazakhstan than just Almaty. :)
Highlights of the hike: the two lakes of Sayramsu and the ultimate solitude of day 2
This hike is for you if: - you want to check out some relatively easy reachable mountain lakes - you're looking for trails that are not overrun by other tourists - you want to see a more barren and deserted part of Kazakhstan
This hike is not for you if: - you're looking for technically difficult hikes - you can't handle the 1500 meters altitude difference on day 2 - you mind thorny bushes along the way :)
Usually you find a map of the hike I did right here, but for once this is not possible. First and foremost the trails are not on the maps I use, but I also decided against tracking them. For the Sayramsu lakes I can give you directions though and it's definitely a hike you can do by yourself. When you reach the Arabian resort, there is already a sign pointing you into the direction of the lake. If you can't find the sign, keep to the right side of the resort. After that there will be more signs to follow until you turn into the valley mentioned in my blog post. From there the trail will be easy to find. We came upon one more junction with a sign that was only in Russian pointing to the left. Ignore the sign and walk straight ahead. From the first to the second lake, the trail is not always obvious as mentioned above. If you loose the path, just continue along the valley you're in, as you will automatically reach the lake at the very end of it. As this trail is a pretty popular one, you might also find some other tourists to ask for directions or else the people at the park entrance can help you out as well. As for the second hike, I decided against tracking it, as I don't want to be the one revealing its location. :) If you want to do this hike, get in contact with Piotr and I'm sure he will be willing to take you along. :) His Instagram account is: guide_in_shymkent
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