Thread: Kyrgyzstan TR some really nice discovery!!!!

I've spend the past 3 weeks discovering (only a small portion) of Kyrgyzstan skiing potential!

This country is located in Central Asia just south of Kazakhstan and about 40% of his landscape is mountain.

I flew from Vancouver all the way out to Bishkek, the Kyrgyz's capital. This town is rather drab and there isn't much to see. After wandering around town for 2 days, we headed to the ski resorts just south of the capital. There is probably about 5-8 different ski resort about 45-60minutes drive from downtown.

As we got there, we were quite disappointed about the snow coverage. Most of the resorts only consisted in a single tow rope and was giving access only to some low angle runs. We actually didn't even consider putting our skis since most of what we were looking at wasn't really interesting skiing-wise. The view was certainly stunning, but we were not there to have a picnic…




Most of the people we met during the day all pointed us towards Karakol, Kyrgyzstan's best resort. We made a no-brainer to make the 6hours (400km) journey east to check out this resort.



Karakol had a much better snow coverage. The lift are also much more modern and the whole set-up certainly looked more like a ski resort. As we just stepped out of bound to check out how the snow looked like. Just as we stepped out, it humph…. After check the snowpack, about half of it was some really big facets.

We eventually made it out to the backcountry, but the inconsistence of the snow made it fairly hard to make some good steady runs. That was too bad, because the resort certainly feature some really nice slackcountry.







We stayed around the resort for about 4 days always pushing our luck a bit more and we eventually triggered a sizeable avalanche that certainly cut our motivation to venture any further out…



We finally met up with Ryan Koupal from 40 Tribes over dinner to discuss the difference options in this mountainous country. He started a nice operation of backcountry from a typical Kyrgyz's Yurt only two years ago couple kilometres outside of Karakol, but his set-up is so nice that he was fully booked and didn't have any availability for some no-plans travellers like me and my Dad (yeah, yeah, discovering this country with my old man!). Before starting this new operation, he had spend 2 years volunteering so he is probably the best source of skiing knowledge about Kyrgyzstan. He pointed us some possibilities like some cat-ski or heli-ski with some professional operation, but what really caught our attention was the ski touring potential in the town of Arslanbob located in the southwest Kyrgyzstan (previous trip report here, here and here.

This town was just next a 4000m and Hayat, a self-taught skiing Kyrgyz started to develop ski-touring about 3 years ago. He his also in charge of organizing CBT (Community Based Tourism) which consist home homestays in local home.There was apparently some nice run to have just next from the village and some others that required some nightstay in a summer shepperd's hut.



The trip looked so good that we drove back to Bishkek (6 hours), catch a plane to Osh (1 hour, 50$ ticket+15$ for overweight luggage) and jumped in a taxi (50$, 4 hours) to make it to this remote location. (If you want to book a plane ticket, the easiest way we found was through Kyrgyz Concept)

This village, mostly Uzbek, was certainly one of the friendliest place I've ever been. Almost everyone we met were greeting us and seemed to be please that we were here to discover the beauty of their homeland.




The tale was right and there was some great skiing just next from town…. and some even better just next from town. I got sick and wasn't able to try the nearby stuff, but the grin on my dad's face certainly made me wish that I went out skiing!

I got better just in time to catch up for the anticipated trip to the overnight backcountry. The climb wasn't much (500m), but like everything else in Kyrgyzstan, it takes more time that you would anticipated. Anyway, the break were packed with food, laugh and good time talking with Hayat and his guides. There wasn't certainly no need to rush!

Since we made it up to the hut in the middle of the afternoon, we climbed the nearby ridge to check out the snow. After a quick climb, we skied down in some really nice, steady and stable snow. That was probably the best snow we had skied since the past 2 weeks.




After a nice dinner over some local delicacies, we went to bed quite full of expectations for the following day. Unfortunately for us, the following day got us fogged up and we weren't able to ski the slope we check the day before…

After spending most of the day drinking tea and eating, we were now really wishing to get the goodies….

As we woke up after a quite cozy night, the weather was a bit clearer. We were really excited…. but again, we got fogged up!

We waited a bit and the weather eventually cleared up!

We eventually had to play hide and seek with the clouds all day. That was too bad, because, the run we were able to get in were really good. The north facing slopes of Jaz-Jarym (that's the name of the area) were certainly delivering what we were hoping.



Since my dad got injured on the way down (he cut his forehead with his skis….) we didn't had much planned. We were staying in a homestay and our host invited us to go talk about Canada to a 80 child of about 14 years old.

We are use to just google everything we don't know and we somehow think that information is something easy to have but in this village that just got telephone (via cellphone) only 5 years ago. Live information is something they certainly don't have. That was something really interesting for me.

I think Kyrgyzstan's will remain under the radar for some time again and this is certainly not due to a lack of potential! We had discover a part of it but I'm sure that much are still to discover for those who will try this experience!

We skied the first weeks of February. Apparently, january can be really good since the sun is not as harsh.

More photos and extra information are available on my blog: www.snowchasers.blogspot.com

Feel free to PM me if you want more info, i will be please to help you out discovering this place.

awesome TR!!!! I've been dreaming about kyrgyzstan for some time now

Fabulous. Thanks

This needs a bump. Always quality TR and pictures from Snowchasers

So fucking cool, another place to add to the list.

Awesome TR!!! I've been to Manas Bishkek many a time back when I used to haul cargo. Always looked out the C-5's windows in awe of the mountains there, and have dreamed of skiing there. Love the people there. Love the scenery. It really is a fascinating country with a LOT of potential. Way to get after it! I hope I can make the trip someday. One of my big life goals is to tour the various former USSR countries, skiing along the way, of course. So far, I've only been to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, but have yet to ski anything there.

very very rad

must go to central asia someday

man, you guys sure know how to get after it...nice job!

<sings> "Kyrgyzstan is numer one; exporter of potassium!"

Incredible photos. Love seeing stuff like this.

Good on you! Way to get after it a long way out there. The mountains looked fab, big adventure factor here. Kudos snowchaser.

You should see some articles/ video out of here for next season. My compadre just finished up with a trip out of here. Sounds like It went well.

Liked it.



Ahghh - you no see Borat?

Dude this is a really cool TR! Thanks for sharing. How was the local food?

Nice TR, Awesome to see the potential with lifts and sidecountry. Did'nt realize that existed. Nice work on heading South and exploring.

Hopefully this just adds to your thread and does'nt hijack it, but we spent 2 months there in the summer kayaking a bunch of rivers a few years back and it was an amazing place. Huge 20,000 ft + mountains everywhere with some over 27,000 feet. Unlimited ski potential if you don't mind scaling a 20,000 foot peak without any porters. They have a lot of heli's but they are all the huge old soviet ones, so not ideal for heli-skiing. Food was terrible and I got sick like you did. Our Russian guides wife convinced me I had to drink a glass of warm Vodka with 10 tablespoons of salt in it. It came right back up and certainly did not make me feel any better. Sounds like you had no worries getting around. When we travelled, we needed a 6 wheel-drive soviet troop transport truck to get around. Most roads were washed out and the passes were a little crazy. It's an unbelievably beautiful and unspoiled place.

great work! thanks for making the world seem even bigger !

Thanks for sharing! Looks like a fun adventure. Props to the old man as well.

cool tr, thanks. i want to go there and i want that muddy vehicle from a couple posts up when i go.

Originally Posted by AustinFromSA

Awesome TR!!! I've been to Manas Bishkek many a time back when I used to haul cargo. Always looked out the C-5's windows in awe of the mountains there, and have dreamed of skiing there. Love the people there. Love the scenery. It really is a fascinating country with a LOT of potential. Way to get after it! I hope I can make the trip someday. One of my big life goals is to tour the various former USSR countries, skiing along the way, of course. So far, I've only been to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, but have yet to ski anything there.

Me too. Scenery remind you of MT at all? It did for me...

You guys spend much time with broke jets at Manas, or was that mostly Ramstein?

Very cool TR! Central Asia definitely requires a sense of adventure.

Originally Posted by nbt

They have a lot of heli's but they are all the huge old soviet ones, so not ideal for heli-skiing.

They look Soviet but are probably Russian, the design of the Mi-8 hasn't changed for decades. And they're great for heli-skiing, two engines, over powered and specially built for high altitudes. You can cram a lot of people and equipment into them making the whole affair cheaper than a Eurocopter.

Cool TR
I'm heading out to Ryan Koupal's yurt in 3 weeks. Hopefully I'll get some decent photos for a TR of my own

wolfelot
Dude this is a really cool TR! Thanks for sharing. How was the local food?

Actually, the food was quite awesome. I didn't have a clue about what they were eating around this part of the world, but there not a single meal that we had that wasn't good.

Goatski
Liked it.
Ahghh - you no see Borat?

Unfortunately, I didn't met him since he's living in Kazakhstan!

Arno
Cool TR
I'm heading out to Ryan Koupal's yurt in 3 weeks. Hopefully I'll get some decent photos for a TR of my own

Say Hello to Ryan! He certainly was the best source of beta out there and definitively pointed me the best places!

Originally Posted by Jumper Bones

Me too. Scenery remind you of MT at all? It did for me...

You guys spend much time with broke jets at Manas, or was that mostly Ramstein?

Yeah. Especially how you have vast, dry plains and then, bam!...mountains. Except the mountains in Kyrgyzstan are WAAAAAAAY bigger than anything I've seen in North America. And yeah, our POS jets broke down all the time. Got stuck in Manas a couple times, but we usually tried our best to make it back to Ramstein so we could get fixed faster and make another run. Some good times. You were a 1A2X1 too, right?

Nice TR, you didn't happen to meet up with Izzy while you were there did ya?

Oh man! That is some good shit.
Would love to do some skiing down there..

love this thread. makes me think I should really get my lazy ass out of europe for skiing very soon.