Dr. Dirtbag

Kazakhstan: pretty good country

The highest peak on the Almaty skyline, and a prominent landmark from most points in the mountains behind it, has had several names. It was Malyy Almaty in pre-Soviet times, then Komsomol in the Soviet Union, then Nursultan during the post-Soviet semi-dictatorship of Nursultan Nazarbayev. Now, according to the summit plaque, it is Almaty Peak, returning to its original name and matching Peak Talgar behind the city of Talgar. It looks hard, but its standard route is rated Russian 2B (AD-, 5.2-5.3), a comfortable scrambling grade for me, and seems to be a moderately popular climb in the area. I had first noticed the peak when I arrived in June, and with enough sun and dry weather to melt any snow on a south-facing route, now was my best chance to climb it. It is normally approached from Shymbulak, taking the tram to the top of the ski resort and hiking up a signed trail to the Bogdanovich Glacier. However I was camped well above Shymbulak, and did not want to take a tram, so I picked out an alternative approach via the saddle below Oktyabryonok and Abaya Pass. With the up-and-down, it looked like it would be a similar effort to walking from the base of the ski area.

With a relatively long day ahead, I started around first light, catching a group of slow-moving climbers at the Oktyabryonok Saddle. One of them told me to wait, because their guide wanted to talk to me. I should have politely ignored him, but I foolishly waited, and was rewarded with my second exposure to Guide Brain in two days. This one was from guide central casting, square-jawed and serious. In addition to informing me that hiking alone was dangerous, he showed me photos of an injured runner, and told me that Abaya Pass was technical (a lie). Who knows what he would have done if I had said I was going to Peak Komsomol, and not just to the glacier? I told the client I would text him when I got back, then continued on my way.

I descended the other side of the first saddle, then made my way across the next valley, through partially-vegetated old moraines. I found a cairn here and there, and a faint use trail in the easier terrain between the moraine and the valley edge, climbing steeply east. It flattened out where the valley turned south and, partly because the terrain ahead looked disgusting and partly because of my recent exposure to Guide Brain, I decided to go over Shkolnik (Student?) Pass, which would deposit me closer to the top of the ski area. This was incredibly tedious and loose talus on the west side, and probably cost me some time, but fortunately it was mostly fast sand on the other side, so I made a quick descent to the glacier trail. Clearly it would be entirely unsuitable for the return, so I would see how “technical” Abaya Pass actually was.

Once on the trail, I followed a mix of cairns and plastic bottles mounted on posts up the right side of the valley, making fairly good time. For those taking multiple days, there is a semi-established camping area at Nunatak, an actual nunatak (for now) in the middle of the Bogdanovich Glacier. I found one tent there, and another farther up the moraine — hardly the crowd I was expecting on a sunny Saturday after Kazakh Constitution Day. I put on my crampons just beyond camp, then proceeded up the bare, low-angle glacier, following a fresh bootpack in the inch or so of fresh snow. There are crevasses in parts of the glacier but, as is often the case, you would have to walk over and jump in them to make them dangerous. Along the way, I passed a couple of men taking pictures standing on the moraine, but they happily just said “hello” instead of offering any more “helpful” advice.

The glacier tops out at the saddle south of Komsomol, where the route continues up a talus slope. On the other side, the terrain drops steeply to the Left Talgar River, 4000 feet below. I found some crampons stashed there, and left my own to dry on a rock before continuing. I found a good use trail, and the ruins of a metal cable, but was still surprised to find the rungs of a via ferrata where I expected the scramble to begin. I also found a large stash of trekking poles at the base of the rungs, warning me to expect traffic.

The ferrata section had plentiful rungs, sometimes in two paths, with broken ones here and there. It was not a true ferrata, as it no longer had a safety cable, but there were bolts that a roped group could clip along the way. They were useless to me, of course, but I did not feel the need to be roped while climbing a ladder. With all the metal, it was hard for me to get a sense of whether the route had been 5.3 originally, or how I would have felt climbing it. After an initial steep, somewhat loose pitch, the route traversed left and slightly down through a gully, then up easier ground on the other side to reach an exposed arete. I clambered up the rungs there, thinking that this would probably have been the crux of the unimproved route.

Where it leveled out, I met a group of climbers on their way down. There were four or five of them on a rope with a guide, unclipping and reclipping their way past quickdraws, doing a decent job avoiding too much slack in the system. The guide seemed slightly nonplussed that I did not have a harness and anchor kit, but did not give me any grief about it. I met a second group descending above, on the looser, lower-angle terrain leading to the summit, similarly roped.

The summit itself had a Kazakh flag and a plaque naming it Almaty Peak in Latin and Cyrillic letters. It was pleasantly calm and warm, and I wanted to give the roped groups a good lead, so I spent a fair amount of time on top, admiring views 12,000’ down to Almaty to the north, and east, south, and west to other glaciated peaks. Someone from one of the groups launched a drone, and after stifling my annoyance I tried to be a good sport and waved.

I met up with the first guided group again above the gully, passing through them as they faffed with their rope — moving as a team of four or five on variable terrain while ensuring any actual safety is tricky. The second group was at the top of the initial steep pitch, either lowering or rappelling. As I waited for the person below to finish, I took a chance and chatted with their guide, and was surprised to find him actually helpful. When I asked about traversing over Karyltau and down to Manshuk Mametova Saddle (above the partly-drained glacial lake), he said it was easy, but that there was a treacherous cornice along the way, tempting because it was flatter than the steeper but safer ice on its windward side. I could see the problem, and the ice looked flat enough for me to navigate, but I ultimately decided to return the way I came.

I talked with a software guy who spoke good English for awhile, then returned to my crampons at the glacier. Partway down, I met a Russian on his way up with boots and trekking poles. When he asked about the via ferrata, I told him that he was on the correct path, and he relayed that to his friend struggling up the moraine to one side. After an expression of hopeless exasperation at the political situation between us, we shook hands and parted.

Continuing just past Nunatak camp, I turned left toward what looked like Abaya Pass, finding large boulders, a bit of scrambling, and a couple of cairns. The other side was less pleasant, with a sling near the top, a bit of scrambling, then steep post-glacial dirt leading to old ice covered in debris. I made my way down this carefully to the unstable moraine below, then suffered onward to rejoin my route, cursing the guide who had lied to me about an unpleasant but fairly routine class 3 pass. I returned to my tent by mid-afternoon, texted the client that his guide was full of it, and basked in a successful day.

The next day’s forecast was not promising, but I had enough food for one more climb, so I optimistally stuck around. I started up the road again early, thinking of trying Ordzhonikidze or Partizan, but they were already in the clouds when I was only two miles in. It was not meant to be an ambitious day. Still, I had food and it was not raining yet, so I made a loop over the minor peaks west of camp, from, Pamyat to Pribornaya. I thought of camping again at the shelters below Shymbulak, but decided I would rather brave Almaty than ride down in the rain the next morning. I randomly chose a much better hostel this time, “Wanderlust Hostel,” which had friendly owners, sane guests, and even kittens. It was a restorative place to wait out the rain and plan my final foray to the mountains.

Ridge and Tuyuk-Su valley

Molodyozhny is a peak northwest of the Tuyuk-Su glacier, with its own lesser glaciers on its north face. I was looking for an easier peak to climb between more ambitious days, and it had a dotted line on its east ridge on my map, so I figured it would suit my needs. Starting from what had become my standard camp in the Tuyuk-Su valley, I hiked up the steep and loose road to the dam, then turned right where the road split beyond the cilmbers’ camp. Continuing past where I had previously turned off for Titov, I paused at a further split in the road, then continued left to the end of the road at something that might have been a glacier monitoring station. Just before the station, I passed a man with an unkempt beard walking slowly up the road, and thought nothing of it.

I turned west more or less where the line showed on my map, and proceeded up a trackless mess of loose talus. I have learned that mountaineers here have a high tolerance for such things, so I suffered it without much complaint. Above the initial talus slope, I found a use trail with some cairns, and enjoyed the easier progress. The path continued across a sloping plateau that eventually narrowed into the peak’s west ridge.

Dodging my way through the initial large boulders on the ridge, I was surprised to find a handline on class 2 terrain. I initially shrugged it off, but it continued, to be joined by a second. These parallel fixed lines would continue almost all the way to the summit, a distance of close to a mile, over mostly class 2 or easy class 3 terrain. The only remotely threatening part of the route was where it traversed around a gendarme, one fixed line to either side. I followed the north one on the way up, which required a short exposed ice traverse that saw me grab the line, and tried the south one on the way down, which required some dry class 3 scrambling. There were even a couple of short ladders along the way. Perhaps it was a training route for Everest. I had brought both crampons and axe, but only used the latter on some steeper bits of the glacier, which were easier than the unstable rock of the nearby ridge near the top.

Reaching the summit, I found an American-style ammo can with a register, and even a laminated multilingual note about the peak’s significance to one of its visitors. My vague plan to continue south toward Lokomotiv and Tuyuk-Su was instantly discarded when I saw the miles of rotten, jagged ridge involved. Again and again, I have been confronted by the fact that ridges are rarely pleasant in these mountains, and the peaks are best attacked on their moderate ice faces, with real crampons and two tools. I enjoyed the pleasant conditions on the summit for quite awhile, taking in views of the main Tuyuk-Su peaks to one side, and Sovetov to the other, much more impressive from this angle.

I finally left the summit, choosing to retrace my route to camp for an easy day rather than trying anything ambitious. I met a couple of men on their way up near one of the upper glacier sections, attached to the fixed lines as one should be, with big boots, crampons, and helmets. My guess is that Molodyozhny is a popular beginner peak, and that the fixed lines are crowded on a sunny weekend. At the base of the fixed lines, I met the scraggly, beardy old guy I had passed on the road, kitting up for the “technical” part of the climb. For some reason he felt it was his place to lecture me about not wearing a helmet, and became angry when I tired of his harangue and replied “da, da.” Up to this point the closest I had come to being endangered by a rock was when a piece of talus rolled onto my toe, but I was vaguely afraid he might throw one at me. I did not even think to give him a hard time about starting up the peak around noon, moving as slowly as he was.

The rest of the descent was just people-watching. By far the best people were a couple I passed near the upper road junction, an old man walking barefoot carrying his boots, and a younger woman going full white trash in a sports bra and booty shorts. The beardy guy would have imploded in rage to see them, but they did just fine, and I saw them passing my camp on their way down later that afternoon, apparently unharmed.

Guide Brain

Have you ever:

1. Critiqued a stranger’s choice of route?
2. Told a stranger that they should not be traveling alone?
3. Told a stranger that they should be carrying a rope/boots/crampons/helmet/radio/etc?
4. Lied to a stranger, telling them that their intended route is harder than it actually is, to get them to do what you think they should?

If you answered “yes” to more than one of these questions, you are probably suffering from Guide Brain, a serous and highly obnoxious disease. If you answered “yes, but…” to one or more, you may also suffer from a lack of self-awareness, and should seek professional help.

In theory, guides should be valuable sources of information about their local mountains. However I have learned that they rarely are, and it is usually best to avoid them or, when confronted, be evasive about your plans. The problem is that guides mostly venture into the mountains with people who are at best inexperienced, and at worst incompetent. Frequently clients want to do something beyond their current ability, and would rather pay a guide than learn the necessary skills. They are like failed mathematicians, drawn to beautiful proofs but reduced to teaching high school algebra. This leads many guides to view all other mountain travelers with automatic contempt, and believe it is their place to tell others how and what to climb.

Oktyabryonok ridge

I returned to the valley above Shymbulak one last time, with more food and confidence, to see what I could accomplish. I had spent a couple of nights in a hostel in Almaty, and while this had allowed me to secure groceries and a box for my bike, I was not exactly well-rested. Finding the hostel set the tone for the visit: the first place I tried had a large sign outside saying “Super Hostel,” and an obvious bunk-room inside, but the only person I found inside asked me to leave. The second place, at which someone online had apparently stayed only a couple of weeks before, had no entrance that I could find. The third turned out to be the place I had stayed on arrival in June, albeit in a private room. The bunk portion was subterranean and stuffy, and operated on Almaty time. It is light at 5:00 AM here, but no one but me seems to move before 8:00. The front desk was run by a supremely unhelpful teenage girl, who pointed me at a bed, handed me sheets, and told me there was nowhere to store my bike. During my brief stay I was chided for trying to do laundry “too early” at 8:30, typing up the blog at the kitchen table, and boiling water for coffee at 6:00 AM. I ate breakfast outside, and the owner passive-aggressively came out to smoke at me as I packed my bike. I gratefully rolled away, happy to be headed back to the mountains.

I set up my tent at the same bend as last time, deciding that it was not worth pushing my bike up the terrible road another mile to the camp above the dam. I arrived by early afternoon, and had the rest of the day to read and consider my options for the next day. I had a trip report from a local guide named Kirill who had traversed the whole valley in three days, and some auto-translated Russian route descriptions that were sometimes helpful and often puzzling, e.g. “The insurance is hooked. You need to use cats.” (I think this means you want pitons and crampons.) I settled on a traverse from Oktyabryonok to Abaya or Amageldy, which Kirill had described as “not too hard.”

I woke when it was reasonably light, as God intended, and was moving by 6:00, hiking up a use trail to a saddle immediately above camp. The ridge started out moderate, with a mixture of steep grass and small rock steps. It was clearly popular, as I found a North Cascades-style tread in the grass in places. This was fortunate, since it had rained the past few days and the grass was slick. The scrambling remained mostly intermittent and moderate, though there was one pitch steep enough to give me pause. Fortunately the underlying rock was good granite, generally with plenty of positive holds, and I slowly regained my confidence with exposed but solid climbing. The climbing became more sustained near the top, and while it was never desperate, I wouldn’t describe it as “easy” — perhaps sustained low fifth class. Subsequent poking around online suggests the route is Russian 3A/2B, which translates to some 5.2-5.3 climbing.

Though a long-ish climb by this ridge, Oktyabryonok is just a small bump on a ridge that rises another 1700 feet. I am not sure how parties climbing only this peak normally descend, but I picked my way down the back of the peak, then continued climbing. The last night’s rain had been snow at this elevation, which was still sticking to the north-facing rocks. The rock also changed from good granite to the choss typical of the higher peaks, and the rest of the climb was, though not technically harder, distinctly less fun.

The next peak, Maria, is one of several minor bumps on the ridge. Its north side looked intimidatingly steep, so I headed right, traversing on loose scree and, as the side of the ridge got steeper, a narrowing ledge. The ledge almost disappeared at a corner, where I thought I might have to backtrack significantly, but it miraculously continued on the other side, with a descending traverse leading to a broad talus bowl. I almost skipped Maria, but backtracked a bit to tag its summit, then continued on a rising traverse toward Abaya. The ridge top might have been more solid, but it was also serrated and steep in places, while my line was more certain.

I finally returned to the ridge below the summit knob, where a series of ramps led to the first of a few summits. I was clearly on the right line, as I found slings and pitons. The climbing would have been straightforward when dry, but the fresh snow made things more precarious, and it took a bit of caution to reach the top. This “summit” had a pole with a clip on top, perhaps for a flag, but I saw several pinnacles of near-equal height ahead. I also found a couple of fixed lines on the back of my summit — clearly some version of the route is popular among guides. I picked my way around the lines, then tagged a couple of the other summits that looked as if they might be higher.

The ridge descended to Amangeldy saddle in a series of steps, generally equipped with rappel anchors, which I dodged to the left with some convoluted ledge-following. I briefly considered tagging Amangeldy as an out-and-back, but it looked obnoxious, and the clouds were starting to build again, so I dropped down a use trail from the saddle. I eventually lost it and was forced to scrabble down some generally wretched steep slopes with occasional good bits of boot-skiing. I eventually picked up the trail leading to “Alpengrad,” a camping area, and took it and the road back to camp. The day had increased my respect not just for Kirill’s speed, but for his tolerance of exposed and loose scrambling.

Almaty Alagar Peak

I had two full days to hike out of Sovetov Camp before I needed more food. On the first, I woke to semi-threatening weather, but the food clock was ticking, so I had my usual breakfast, packed my axe and crampons along with the usual day-hiking things, and headed southeast toward Tourist Pass. My plan was to tag one or more of the peaks south and east of the pass, starting with Sovetskykh Alpinistov and possibly continuing to Sverdlovsk State University. Unfortunately the weather turned as I reached the pass, and it began snowing as I reached Pokryshkin, a named non-peak just a few hundred feet above to the south. I don’t like climbing potentially tricky things in bad weather, so I glanced at the annoying-looking mixture of bad rock and glacier ahead and turned around. I regretted this choice as the squall passed on my hike back to camp, then felt it justified as it rained and hailed, sometimes savagely, all afternoon. I mostly stayed in my tent, but emerged to present my passport to the army guys from the nearby border post, who came by on foot with their long guns to see who was massing to invade Kyrgyzstan.

The next day dawned humid and clear, and I headed in the other direction. Peak Almaty Alagar is the highpoint of the ridge southeast of camp, whose north face is a striking mix of steep glaciers split by rock ribs. It looked reachable from Almaty Alagar Pass to its west, by a long and tedious ridge, but I thought it might also be climbable via the rib just east of its summit. I crossed the bridge across the Ozeni River, then followed a faint trail and a line on my map toward Alamty-Alagar Pass. The trail faded away, but the ground was mostly easy grass as I climbed west below the fresh moraines. Along the way, I passed a few of what seemed to be snow-depth markers: tall poles with 10cm slats nailed to them every 20cm.

My judgment and confidence were still off, so I waffled on whether to try the north rib. It looked easy in the morning light from the east, then hard straight-on from the north, then easier as I looked back at it from the northwest. I almost kept going to the pass and settled for hiking Karniznaya, but I needed to get up something non-pathetic to remind myself what it felt like to be a sort-of “mountaineer,” or at least a peak-bagger.

Unfortunately by the time I decided to climb Almaty Alagar, I had passed beyond the most direct route to the base of the rib, and had to backtrack across a sea of undulating moraine. The unpleasant terrain was made worse by the need to defend my ankle, but I eventually made it to the base of my intended route. The ridge started out as solid granite, with some clean slabby sections mixed with talus and debris. Higher up, the rock deteriorated to the rotten stuff typical as one heads farther south in the range, and the climbing became a mixture of tedious and cautious. I looked longingly at the glacier to my left, but without real crampons and perhaps a second ice tool, I did not feel capable of climbing 40-degree bare glacial ice. Instead I continued picking my way up the rib, with a final desperate dirt-scrabble below the top.

Things became substantially easier on the east-west summit ridge. I turned west, and was able to walk along the flat top of the glacier in places, switching to the annoying talus on the crest when it got too steep. I suppose I technically visited Kyrgyzstan one last time by dodging some bumps to the south. The summit had plenty of detritus, with a strange wood contraption possibly left by surveyors, and a summit register in a plastic bottle that had been burnt by lightning. It indicated that one or two parties per year climb this peak, though I couldn’t make much sense of their Cyrillic cursive entries.

I did not really want to return the way I had just ascended — loose class 4 is a pain to downclimb — so I opted for the ridge to Almaty Alagar Pass that I had earlier dismissed as too tedious. Though it had a few scrambly sections, it was easier than what I had gone up, and every bit as tedious as I had imagined. Feeling good from having actually climbed something for the first time in awhile, I decided to head across the pass to tag Karniznaya. I steered clear of a group resting near the sign, then dropped my pack and grabbed my hoodie before starting up. The ascent follows easy class 2 talus and is reasonably popular. I met one group coming down who had traversed from Peak Tourist with large packs; they informed me that it was every bit as painful as it had looked to me two days earlier.

I had the summit to myself, though there were parties both ascending and descending in the early afternoon. Unfortunately clouds obscured most of the views, but I was able to see the higher peaks to the south. I returned to my pack, then followed another party down from the pass into the clouds, trying to pick out cairns and bits of use trail. I soon passed and left them, staying high and right where I knew the route should be, and eventually found familiar landmarks from the morning. All that remained was a tired hike back to camp. Most of the people had left, including those in the large mess tent. They had left a large pile of trash including a half-eaten watermelon, which was later collected by some men in a Jeep. Accustomed to mountains with animals that will eat unattended food, I still find the practice here strange. There were English-speakers in camp — two Czech women — but they were predictably insular, so I did not bother to try to chat. I had a quiet evening and a lazy morning, then biked back down to the city.

Road to Peak Tourist

With a better sense of what my ankle could handle — scrambling yes, running no — I returned to Almaty to stock up on food and head back to the mountains. The descent from Shymbulak is ridiculously steep, and I finally managed to melt my front brake pads down to nothing. I swapped in one of the spare pairs I had brought, then continued into town. I stopped at a gas station with a café, where I bought enough food for them to hopefully not kick me out while I charged my phone. While I was not asked to leave, the remarkably thorough cleaning ladies did have me move a few times as they moved the permanent-looking benches to hand-scrub the floor beneath them. No wonder the place looked so clean.

There was a giant supermarket just down the street, so I rolled over to buy a week or so of food. As I was stuffing it all onto my bike, a man came up and introduced himself. He was from Almaty, but had gone to school in the States, and spoke excellent English. He was also very well-traveled, though with more money and less mountains than Yours Truly. Before he left, he gave me his number and told me to get in touch if I had any trouble. It was the second time this had happened — a guy who spoke much less English had done the same at the gas station. Almaty is a thoroughly cosmopolitan place, but it seems not to be afflicted by tourist fatigue yet.

I decided to return to the first place I had visited in Central Asia, the valley above Big Almaty Lake. I tried desperately to avoid the city on my way west to the other mountain road, but ended up wasting a good part of the afternoon fighting my way through neighborhoods, including a gated community still under construction. Hot and sick of the city, I resolved to grind my way up at least to the lake. However I noticed a couple of bike tourists camped at some picnic tables a mile below it, and decided to stop there. They were killing time in Almaty, one waiting for bike parts, the other for a Chinese visa.

I started early the next day, and decided on a whim to check out the road beyond the lake, which climbs past an observatory to a pass at 11,000 feet. Not wanting to drag all my gear up the climb, I hid it in the bushes near Big Almaty Lake, then continued with just a daypack. Fortunately I had packed my passport, because there was a random gate with an army guy who wanted to look at it partway up the road. He did not photograph it or record my name, so I am not sure what purpose this served. The road was punishingly steep, but well-paved and blessedly free of cars, so I enjoyed the climb. With over 8000 feet of elevation gain between downtown Almaty and the end of the road, this would be a heck of a race.

The road ends at the pass in a small collection of ramshackle buildings, from which a trail leads north to Big Almaty Peak. I locked my bike to a post and headed the other way, following a line on my map leading to Tourist Peak. This started out as a decent trail, then deteriorated into a semi-popular route through steep and unstable talus. While there was no real trail, there was plenty of decaying mystery infrastructure, including a bundle of cables connecting some small pitched-roof boxes. I eventually joined a few Russian-speakers on the summit, who offered me coffee and took my photo. I had thought of perhaps continuing to Turan and Karniznaya Peaks, but the connecting ridge was the region’s usual frustrating talus. I saw a guy headed toward Turan, but I lacked the will, and the weather was turning anyways. I headed back to my bike, then coasted back to my gear at the lake.

With the rain holding off, I packed up to continue to the campground below Sovetov Peak. In June, it had been no problem to lift my bike over the gate, then ride and push the lousy road past the lake and up the valley. This time, however, an army-looking guy in a building near the lake indicated that I was not allowed to pass. I tried to ask him if the bike was the reason, but he seemed to give me an unconditional “no.” Odd.

Back at the gate, I asked a group of backpackers who had just come down the road if they had had trouble with the guard. They had not, and when I explained what had just happened, one Russian guy decided that this should not stand. He talked to a beefy army-ish guy in a nearby building, then told me to follow him back to the other guard. I don’t know what was said, but the guy who had turned me back fifteen minutes happily waved me forward and showed me the correct road. I thanked the Russian guy and continued on my way. I have encountered several Russians here, and there is always a background awareness of the war in Ukraine. But with one exception, they have seemed to wish it were not happening, and treated me as just a fellow stranger in a strange land. Something like 100,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war, but I suppose it is a large country, and soldiers come from a different class than those able to travel.

In any case, I reached the Sovetov campground by mid-afternoon. There were only a few people when I set up my tent, but by evening there were another dozen tents, including a huge half-cylinder mess tent next to mine. None of the others seemed to be mountaineers, but the campground is a popular stop for people trekking between Big Almaty and Shymbulak and/or climbing Sovetov. While I enjoyed my time in this camp in June, talking with the Frenchman and Indonesians, this time the others all spoke Russian and Kazakh, and it felt lonelier than having the place to myself. I retreated to my sleeping bag early, putting on a podcast to drown out the unintelligible chatter.

Peak Nursultan/Komsomol

For my second and last day above Shymbulak, I decided to check out the peaks above Manshuk Mametova Lake. I would normally have packed food for more days away from civilization, but I had been uncertain about my ankle and anxious to escape the chaos of Almaty when I headed up to Medeu. My original plan was to head to the pass above the lake, then climb one or both of the peaks to either side. The route looked like it mostly or entirely avoided glaciers, so I left my axe and crampons behind. However I wisely brought my bike, figuring that even if I had to push it most of the way up, it would save me painful downhill walking on the return. Not having walked much in the past couple of months, I was already sore from the eccentric contractions from hiking downhill the day before. I pushed and occasionally rode my bike up past the alpinist camp, continuing to some random switchback where I judged that having a bike for the descent would no longer be worthwhile. I semi-hid it behind a boulder and locked it to itself, then continued on foot up the absurdly steep but still-used road to the lake.

Just below the outlet, I passed a new-ish bulldozer, stopped in the middle of remodeling the area. The lake itself was an industrial disappointment. It had originally been a morainal lake formed by the retreat of the Manshuk Mametova Glacier. As I learned in Peru, the rubble dams holding these lakes can collapse suddenly and unpredictably, causing catastrophic floods. Presumably to prevent this, the Kazakhs and/or Soviets had breached the moraine and installed large plastic tubes to drain the lake at a lower level. It all made for a dispiriting view, and I carefully picked my way up the bank above a monitoring station to sit and ponder my motivation and plans.

The route to Manshuk Mametova Pass looked both awful and impossible with my current gear, crossing endless unstable moraine and then climbing either bare glacial ice or some kind of dirt/ice mix to its left. After looking around, I decided instead to check out Pioneer Pass and possibly peak. I met Luca, my Italian camp-mate, who was equally disappointed by the lake. He did not seem interested in climbing the loose scree of the pass, instead heading back to perhaps check out the valley toward Titov, where I had been the day before.

Pioneer Pass was indeed a slog, but there was a decent use trail with fairly recent boot prints. The Soviets were very much into mountaineering at both the elite and recreational levels, and that interest seems to continue in independent Kazakhstan. There is doubtless information either online or in books about the routes on these peaks, but it is likely nearly all in Russian or perhaps Kazakh, and I have been unable to find much of it. This gives my outings a feeling of pseudo-adventure, where I figure out a route, then find footprints and cairns, or perhaps tat and pitons. Reaching the top of the pass, I found a bivy platform and more use trails leading up the scree toward Pioneer.

At the top of the scree, I trended left a bit too late, but eventually found the route through some initial cliffs, with more signs of passage and a large block slung with a piece of climbing rope at the top. Above, I picked my way up and right, not sure where the summit was, but following the path of least resistance and finding the odd sign of previous passage. Pioneer, the lower of the two peaks, lay a short distance to the left from the ridge, reached by a bit of easy third class scrambling from a small notch. Its summit has a superb view of nearby Peak Nursultan (Komsomol), the local highpoint and a landmark visible from the city. This peak hits a Former Soviet double, starting out as Malyy Almaty, then being renamed once for the Komsomol (a Soviet youth organization) in the 1930s, then again for Soviet apparatchik cum post-Soviet dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev.

The ridge connecting Pioneer to Nursultan and the rest of the range has been glaciated on both sides, and is therefore narrow and sheer. Neighboring and slightly higher Uchitel looked like a more serious scramble, but Pioneer is barely a peak, and I had plenty of daylight left. I returned to the notch, then wasted some time exploring before accepting that the only feasible route lay along the crest. It started with an awkward move over a chockstone with a cheater sling, then a downclimb to the first notch. This was one of the route’s two cruxes, as it looked like the rock had recently fractured, leaving loose blocks and gritty surfaces. My scrambling skills were rusty, so it took me awhile to make my way down, carefully poking at things with my feet and taking an unnecessary but reassuring detour to the left.

From the notch, the climbing relented for awhile, with the best route staying on or close to the crest. The second crux was a narrow section that overhung to one side, like the “wave” on Matthes Crest, then ended in a short but steep downclimb. I normally would have scrambled this directly without much thought, but I was timid and out of practice, so I tried a couple of sequences on the exposed and somewhat slabby descent, then retreated. I tried another, slightly lower traverse, but a final sort of down-mantle stymied me. Rather than admitting defeat, I tried a long detour around to the left, which worked, but was probably more difficult and insecure, as the rock quality on the ridge’s sides was generally poor. I finally climbed back up some mud and rubble to reach the ridge again, somewhat regretting my choice.

From there, more class 3-4 scrambling led to the summit. Uchitel is not the highest point in the area, but I believe it has enough prominence to be a real peak, and I had done enough work to feel like I had achieved something. Retracing my steps, I found the crux I had climbed around to not be all that hard. Perhaps it was just the difference between going down and up, but I used to be better at such things. The second crux section closer to Pioneer felt similarly easier.

Back on easier ground, I picked my way down to Pioneer Pass, then down the use trails to the ugly lake. A man had amazingly driven a Toyota Hilux nearly to the bulldozer, even backing it up the last hundred yards of the steep, loose road. I saw another vehicle lower down, with no occupants but stickers suggesting it might be owned by a guiding company. I was grateful for my bike, even though I was not skilled enough to ride the entire road back to camp, as it spared me a crippling amount of pounding. I reached camp just as Luca was packing up, and settled in for a peaceful evening before returning to Almaty for supplies.

Titov cirque from the east

[For those of you who used to come here for the peak-bagging, the last year must have been consistently disappointing. But you’re in luck: for a short time at least, the blog will return to previous form. — ed.]

After nearly two months, it was finally time for me to test out my ankle, to see what I could get away with in my neglected hobby of peak-bagging. There are many peaks of varying difficulty in the mountains south of Almaty, many with short approaches. For my first foray, I chose to head up the valley beyond the ice rink at Medeu and the ski resort of Shymbulak. First, though, I had to pass through the southeast quadrant of Almaty. The descent from Esik Lake was fast and quiet, and once I made it through Esik to the canal road, the ride west started off pleasant. However somewhere near Bayterek, traffic started getting miserable, with a steady stream of gravel trucks on the narrow road. The traffic would continue for most of the rest of my day. I stopped at a gas station in Almaty to get more fuel for my stove, and picked up some random food, but I was overwhelmed by the chaos after so much time in the wilds of Kyrgyzstan. Medeu is a popular tourist destination, so the traffic continued on the long climb to the ice rink. It diminished somewhat above, as the tourists seem to park there and walk up a steeper path to continue. There is a large earthen dam above the ice rink, but it does not hold any water. I think it may exist to guard against floods from the glacial lakes above, but I am not sure. In any case, it seemed to be a popular place for Kazakhs to take selfies.

I stopped at a camping location I saw on OpenStreetMap, not sure what to expect, and was pleased to find a couple of the excellent pitched-roof shelters scattered around Ile-Alatau National Park. Neither was occupied, so I happily spread my groundsheet in one, sparing me the trouble of dealing with my tent. A few hikers passed through in the early evening, with some stopping to talk. One was a guy with his son who asked me for a smoke (a surprising number of people smoke in the mountains here), then for a dollar bill, neither of which I had.

The others were a couple of teenagers from the city, one of whom spoke fairly good English. He was studying business and wanted to travel, and I talked to him some about where I had traveled and talked up the affordability of traveling by bike. Thinking about it more afterwards, I concluded that the economics were tougher for him than for me. Living in the States is expensive enough that, by staying in a cheaper country for a few months and camping out, my costs including plane ticket are no more than what I would spend back home. A big part of that is either rent or the gas to live in my car and travel, but even the cheaper food adds up. While my Kazakh friend might save on rent, his other costs would increase visiting many other countries. He could cheaply visit some incredible places riding from home, like Santiago, the young Argentinian I met in El Chaltén. Still, I was reminded that I am perhaps most fortunate to live in an expensive country when I leave it.

Things quieted down overnight, and after a peaceful sleep I continued up the road to Shymbulak. This started with a short descent, then turned uphill too steeply to ride, even though it was smooth and paved. The ski area itself was mostly abandoned, though it otherwise felt like the Alps, with expensive-looking chalets and a gondola overhead. There were a few cars around, but the parking lot at the base of the lifts was empty. The one odd note was a sign proclaiming the “Shymbulak Meat Restaurant,” whose word choice was skewed in translation.

Beyond the ski area, the road deteriorated and turned to dirt, but the plague of second homes continued, and what was labeled “Alpinist base ‘Khan Tengri’” on my map had become a partly-completed chalet development. However the alpinist memorial above it remained, and I stopped to visit. It was a bit like the one I had visited in Ala Archa, with no particularly old memorials, and ages at death ranging from “clearly mountaineering-related” to “possibly old age.” For the former, the plaques usually gave the peak on which the accident occurred.

Not wanting to camp in a half-built house, I continued to mostly push my bike up the road, which was a steep mix of loose river rocks and sand. I planned to camp at a flat spot inside a switchback, but found a half-dozen tents staked around the picnic shelters there. Somewhat annoyed, I parked my bike a polite distance away, switched to hiking clothes, and started up the road, which became even looser and steeper. Still, I probably should have pushed my bike up (and down) this section, as there is a popular developed climbers’ camping area just beyond an earthen dam, with an outhouse and the standard Ile-Alatau shelters and giant swing.

Above, I continued on the road to the southwest, then left it at a cairn where my map indicated a route up Titov Peak, which I thought was a ranked 13er. I followed faint bits of use trail and occasional cairns up steeper grass, then across a hanging valley to a talus-slope leading to the peak’s east ridge. I slogged my way up the loose slope, then followed cairns on and left of the ridge to the summit. Non-threatening clouds had blown in at this point, so I did not get the summit views I had hoped for. Had I been my normal (or a former) self, I would have continued traversing south around the cirque to Cosmonaut, Diver (Bodolaz), and Malysh, but I had tested my ankle enough. Oddly, it caused me almost no trouble when I was moving slowly on steeper ground and placing my foot deliberately, but I had to be cautious on easier uneven terrain.

I hiked back to my bike, passing crowds of people out day-hiking, and was pleased to find that I now had the campground to myself. Later in the afternoon a young Italian backpacker showed up, and we talked enjoyably until dark. I was slightly jealous of, but mostly amused by, the freeze-dried risotto he had brought from home for dinner. While he thought his country was doomed politically, he loved and respected its food, making me feel slightly guilty about turning some dried spaghetti into a pot of caloric glue. He seemed to be a competent Alpinist, but had only brought hiking gear for his trip to the ‘Stans, focusing more on sightseeing. We retreated to our respective tents at dusk, each with different and uncertain plans for the next day.

Storm clouds toward camp

I had come up the Engilchek Valley to see how close I could get to Khan Tengri on a bike. The short and sad answer is: “not much farther than I had,” or about 36 miles. I had my usual breakfast glop and coffee, then took off up the road on my unloaded bike, enjoying its lightness on the hills and maneuverability on the rough patches. Just over the hill, I ran into a couple of young Aussies on motorcycles, in the middle of their morning routine. When they aren’t drinking endless beer and keeping me up in a hostel, I generally enjoy and am impressed by the Australians I meet traveling, finding them cheerful and adventurous. These two were no exception, one of them having barely learned to ride a motorcycle before renting bikes and heading out into the wildest wilds of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, with their legendarily bad roads and limited services. Like me, they had simply headed up the valley to see what they could see, but they were also more mobile on foot, and were trying to hike easier peaks that looked interesting (basically what I hoped to do). They described being turned around on some sketchy scree next to a glacier the day before, but remained undaunted, and planned to attempt another peak before the afternoon storms. I encouraged them to carry axes and crampons next time, which are well worth the weight, then continued east.

The road effectively ended at a final herder’s dwelling only a mile or so past my camp, where one must ford the At-Djailoo River, which starts in the glaciers of Alexander von Humboldt Peak. This is one of a rising line of peaks separating the Engilchek Valley and Glacier from the similar Kaindy to its south, apparently named for admirable explorers including Humboldt and Nansen. The ford looked less than knee-deep, but the road apparently ended, so I would likely be either hiking or pushing my bike through river rocks to continue. Neither appealed to me, so I returned to camp, packed up, and retraced my route through Engilchek almost to the border zone guard.

Just before the gate, a dirt road crosses the Ottuk and follows the upper Saryjaz east. I had noticed the road on the Silk Road Mountain Race route, and it would be both new and convenient, depositing me near the Kazakh border crossing at Kegen. I still had over a week on my Kyrgyz visa, and plenty more Kyrgyzstan to explore, but it would have to wait for another trip. I had in fact passed two pieces of unfinished business that day: the route from Engilchek to Kara-Say via the Uchkel River and Ishigart Pass, and Peak Soviet Constitution, the 17,000-foot highpoint of the range west of Engilchek. I am not sure either would have been feasible for me with my bike-mountaineering gear, but both seemed possible, and will remain tantalizing unknowns.

The Saryjaz road is yet another Kyrgyz road that exists mostly for herders to reach their summer pastures, with no towns for the sixty miles between its junction with the Engilchek road and Karkira near the Kazakh border. It lies on the northwest side of the high peaks around Khan Tengri, following the river between 9000 and over 10,000 feet. A few miles down the rocky dirt road, I met a minivan packed with ten or so Kyrgyz coming the other way, a spare tire strapped to the roof, the children happily waving at me. Less than an hour later, I met a pack of Europeans in souped-up off-road vehicles raging down the same road, massively overequipped and traveling annoyingly fast. The day’s ride ended as it so often does in the Kyrgyz highlands, with me getting walloped by a thunderstorm. I handled this one better than I sometimes do, donning my windbreaker and poncho, slowly riding on to a flat spot, and waiting for a break in the rain to pitch my tent. I had been hoping to reach the point where the main road leaves the river, and could have kept riding into the evening after the storm had passed, but I had done enough for the day, and had plenty of food.

The next morning I finished up what I had hoped to do the day before. I was glad that I had waited as the road had some steep rollers and rough patches that were frustratingly slow. I met the Polish supported cyclists I had met two days earlier just as they were starting out at a river ford, and got to see how they traveled. There were about ten of them, with a half-cylinder tent for eating and perhaps sleeping, and a Soviet monster vehicle to carry their stuff between camps. They were neither unfriendly nor outgoing, so I did not get much information out of them.

As I headed east, I began to draw even with the glaciated peaks between the Saryjaz and Engilchek Rivers. One summit caught my eye, rising to just over 15,000 feet and looking neither easy nor impossible for me with my gear. Critically, there is a road bridge across the Saryjaz to its north, making it accessible, and the end of its road approach lies only one long day by bike from the nearest food. It is probably beneath the notice of “real mountaineers,” and the local herders are not interested in scaling mountains, so if it has been climbed, there is unlikely to be information about it. More unfinished business…

I passed a military outpost with its lookout tower, but the gate was open, and no one came out to check my pass. Perhaps it was a relic of Soviet times. I reached the junction where the main road turns north, and stopped to eat lunch and set up my tent as the Poles streamed by on their way north to Karkira. I had earlier noticed on Strava, of all places, than someone had ridden another twenty miles up the valley to the east, and I wanted to check it out on an unloaded bike. The road deteriorated rapidly, but I continued passing the occasional herder’s dwelling in the increasingly harsh and remote valley. The peaks to the south were getting higher, though with no convenient bridge, they would be difficult to reach.

Unfortunately I had started up the road late, and the whole time I was watching the storms build behind me to the west, worrying that my tent would blow away. The rain finally arrived about halfway up the road, and rather than wait it out, I decided to return to check on my things. I would not be able to see much of the peaks, and the road passed through some boggy fields that would be wretched after a serious rain. I slogged my way back into a headwind in my poncho, passing a horseman and his dogs I had seen on my way out, him now wearing an identical-looking poncho. We waved at each other in sympathy. Thankfully my Alps Palace had not blown away like a tumbleweed, and its poles appeared unbent. It had stopped raining and was only mid-afternoon, but I decided I had had enough for the day. I worked my way through some of my dwindling supply of reading material, had an early dinner, and was prepared to have another early night.

I knew there was a shepherd family over the hill to the north, and assumed they had noticed my tent — nomads are observant — but did not want to disturb them. However the father and his two kids, a boy and girl aged eleven and six, came by the tent and, after chatting clumsily for awhile in pantomime, invited me over for tea. I was not as tired as on my return from the Chinese border, and the kids were cute, so after the father repeatedly expressed concern that I might be cold, I put on pants and layers and returned with them to their house.

Most Kyrgyz shepherds seem to live in a combination of yurts and Soviet railcar-like houses on wheels, but this man had built a legitimate cabin. The walls were double-layered corrugated metal with insulation, and the pitched roof was similar. He had even installed solar panels on the roof, connected to a large lead-acid battery and a 1200W inverter, which drove a single bare lightbulb and charged the family’s three phones. With no cell service for thirty miles in any direction, the phones served as affordable cameras for everyone and (discouragingly to me) gaming devices for the kids. The interior layout was still basically yurt-like, with a small deck on which to remove shoes, a dung-fired stove near the door, a table to one side, and a pile of blankets where everyone slept at the back. I tried to ask why they had chosen this particular spot, and wish I had been able to ask a lot more questions, but the language barrier was too much. I did at least learn that they and, perhaps, most Kyrgyz shepherds return to the same place every summer, making them more migratory than nomadic.

The meal consisted of tea with milk, bread, butter, and what I think were chunks of sheep fat. The mother kept my teacup full, spooning in some milk, then pouring in the tea, and regularly urged me to eat and drink. I tried to follow their lead on how to use and reuse utensils and where to set them down, but I don’t think there are strong prohibitions. At the end, the mother rinsed out our cups with a bit of hot water, then the father poured me, his son, and himself cups of kumis from a large plastic water jug, presumably made from sheep milk. At this point the kids, bored of the frustrating attempts at conversation, had retreated to their phones to play games. They apparently learn some English in school, but were both shy.

They waved to me from the porch, and I made my way carefully back to my tent using my phone as a flashlight. With no real landmarks in the gently-rolling grass, it was hard to pick the right direction, but fortunately I could simply go until I hit the road, then find a boulder I remembered near the hummock in front of my tent. They seemed to be shining their flashlights in my general direction in a failed attempt to be helpful, but thankfully I managed to make it back without embarrassing myself by getting lost.

They had invited me back in the morning for tea before taking off. I was up early for breakfast as usual, and was just packing away my sleeping bag when my tent shook in a way that did not feel like a breeze. I looked outside and saw that the father had snuck up and was tugging on one of the guy lines. I communicated that I would join them after I packed up, then went through the usual and depressingly slow process of packing my bike. If I were to ever do a bikepacking race, camping and decamping efficiently would save me more time than any fitness improvements.

I hung out again for awhile in the morning, over a similar breakfast of tea, bread, and fats to spread on it. I showed them my packed-up bike, then they took some photos with it, the son exasperatedly showing the father how to use the phone camera. I also took a few photos for my memories, and the father asked me to take a short video, and then it was sadly time to ride. The father filled one of my water bottles with kumis, and the mother gave me three small river rocks, then I started up toward the pass to the north. Looking back, I could see the lower peaks to the south, and Khan Tengri and its neighbors far to the southeast. I sadly took my last look at the Kyrgyz highlands, and rolled down the other side.