August 19, 2022
Trying to find information about the mountain trails in Kyrgyzstan can be frustrating, very frustrating. It seems that people here know only what they need to know. If you don’t go up to the mountains you don’t know about them. Nomads and villagers living in the mountains are the best source of information but are hard to find and harder to communicate with if you don’t speak Kyrgyz and it seems like sharing information here and collecting it is not a priority.
Generally speaking and in my experience in Kyrgyzstan, people live a good and simple life. They do what they need to do and know what they need to know. People in the countryside know how to build a yurt and take care of their herds, how to make food that will nourish and sustain them, where to get good drinking water and how to use the cow for leather, meat, milk, yogurt, cream, cheese, butter and collect the animal poop to burn and keep the yurt warm. Basically, they have a life that is very independent, self-sustainable to a high degree and comfortable. People live well, close to their family and close to the land and seem mostly happy.
I would not call this society an ambitious one. It seems like anything extra beyond what is necessary is just a waste of time and energy. Why bend down and work hard to milk your vast herd of sheep and goats if you get enough milk from your cows? Would you rather make more money when instead you can lay on the grass with the sun warming you while your herds roam wild?
My friend Shuva joined me on the trail about a week ago. We hiked for 5 days and made it to
Kazarman, where we decided to continue together. We had very little idea how to continue from there. We knew we were in the foothills at the north of the Fergana Mountain range which stretches all the way from Toktogul in the northwest to the Chinese border near Chatyr-Kol in the southeast, and we needed to get all the way to the south end of the range. My original plan was to find a way to walk to the top of the mountain range and walk along it until it reaches Chatyr-Kul, one of the three big lakes of Kyrgyzstan, the others being Issyk-Kol and Song-kol.
For two days we tried to find local people to talk to and tried to contact hiking guides from all over the country. We looked through maps, looked online and couldn’t find anything resembling this range. It didn’t exist on the maps. The people who did know about the range only knew it as a place to drive across in order to get to other areas. Using the only source available to us, my old Soviet maps, (which honestly even today are the best source of information for hiking in this part of the world) I sketched out a route, based mostly on sheer topography. And so, with the knowledge that things are going to change and we will have to be flexible and figure it out as we go, we headed out.
First thing we needed to do was get up the hill and into the mountains. We caught a couple of rides out of town, got back on trail just before darkness took over, set up our tent and prepared for 10 days of hiking. We were well supplied in preparation for this long leg of the journey. Carrying a kilo of food per person per day, we decided to prepare for 7 days and hope we could rely on the local support for the rest (buy some bread, butter and meat from locals along the way if we needed to). In the morning we started climbing, walking the long and winding road up to the pass, leaving the road behind and continuing up the ridgeline as it rolled up and down with sharp falls on both sides. About 2500 m higher from where we started that morning we found a place to camp. The next day and a half we walked the knife’s edge standing on top of the world, climbing the sharp rock formations and soft round peaks which compose the highest point of the mountains. At this elevation trails barely exist, horses don’t get up here, people don’t get out here. It’s better to look for sheep and mountain goat paths and animal signs to follow. When no signs are visible, you create your own path, being careful and aware of every step.
At this elevation you won’t find yurts. Families do not live up at the top of the ridge. It is very tough walking the ridgeline. Having to stick with the ridge means you move as it moves, up and down and up and down and up and down, traveling some of the most exhausting terrain while having to stay alert and safe. This is where the eagles roam, flying right beside you; this is where you see the world spreading out beneath your feet; the heart expands and every breath is full of excitement and wonder – unbelievably beautiful. There’s really no way to describe what it feels like to stand on the top of the world.
Not too far below the ridge we found small tents fit for one person or maybe two, sitting on small steps on the mountainside, completely isolated by hours of walking from one another and the rest of the world. These are herders who left their main camp and climbed up with their animals looking for new pastures where they stay for a little while before changing location again. Water is incredibly difficult to find on the ridge and not wanting to go down for hours to the nearest spring, we accepted some water from a shepherd after stopping to say hello.
We stayed on top of the ridge for almost two full days until we reached the Saimaluu-Tash valley. Walking down the valley we discovered an incredible sight. Saimaluu-Tash (patterned rocks) is famous for its petroglyphs, nearly 100,000 rocks with carved pictures.
First we saw a few, then a few more and more and more until almost every stone was covered with carvings. These carvings were made by people throughout the ages, some 4,000 years old. The carvings depict the life of the nomadic people. Goats are most common, being the main food source, hence the main interest to people in the area. Many rocks depict horses that are a huge part of the nomadic life. There are carvings of leopards, dogs, wolves, rivers and mountains; depictions of hunts with people using bows and arrows, tools, the sun and much more. Some carvings seem to be of spirits and supernatural beings. Some seem to be the work of amateurs and others were incredibly elaborate and skillful. And today no one knows why they were made. What made this specific valley special, and what did the artists try to achieve? Maybe this valley, which is a main passage between the high mountains and the valley below and the movement of winter to summer, was a sacred site. Maybe that’s where the kids went to hang while the parents were busy. Seeing and feeling these old works of graffiti was a powerful experience, knowing that people made this artwork thousands of years ago, trying to share and preserve what they saw, felt and lived.
As we walked down the valley, having barely had water to drink during the last days, we found a beautiful spring to quench our thirst. The water was bubbling up from in between the rocks.
The sun was low in the west about to set and clouds started to flow into the valley creeping from above and dropping a light rain which washed the earth and rocks, making the carvings even more visible, shining, almost come alive. And to add to the wonder we met a small herd of horses hanging out among the rocks.
We put our rain gear on and continued down the steep valley looking for a flat surface for the night. We kept going down and kept looking and as the sun went down we found a little rise in between two small streams where we flattened the shoulder-high vegetation to make room for the tarp and settled for the night. In the morning we walked down and crossed over a glacier which covered the bottom of the valley, continuing down until the Saimaluu-Tash river merged with the bigger river below where we found to our surprise a large well maintained paved road. The road was built by the Chinese as part of a huge project to connect the area of Kazarman to Jalalabad and Osh and was leading to a massive tunnel cutting under the Fergana mountains that has been under construction for the last 8 years and should be done in a couple more.
We walked on; roads, trails, river crossings, bushwalking, tiny remote villages and even smaller yurt camps, animals and shepherds, and the mountains, up and down and up and down. Then a change, small at first: the mountains become rounder and less sharp, Yurts become more common, the terrain becomes gentle, and then even softer and flatter, and then you go up one more hill and we saw it. An enormous vast completely flat valley spreading far, almost to the horizon surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides that look tiny in the distance.
The area is arid but full of water, rivers flowing from the mountains above and crisscross the great high elevation plains of this valley, whose lowest point is around 3000 m. We have reached The Arpa Valley, super easy walking, plenty of water, easy to see why the silk road passed through here.
In this environment, walking becomes fast, simple and almost boring. You can really get in the zone, a kind of walking meditation, where the body moves instinctively, almost without thought, like a machine designed for the purpose. Just walk and be. A few days of that and many interactions with shepherds including two nights where we were invited to sleep with the family in their yurt, share their food for dinner and breakfast, play with the kids and talk to the elders, have a taste of their lives for a short time.
On a long hike the trail becomes home and home passes through different environments, different people, different experiences, changes location every morning and every evening, I don’t get to experience people’s lives fully or understand them completely, but I have a chance to walk through their lives to share in their existence for a few moments and become very close, almost intimate, and then move on, leave them with their lives and continue with mine. There’s always a sense of loss when that happens, a sense of missing out and separation, but also a great feeling of belonging anywhere and everywhere, connecting and taking part in the lives of the people I meet on the road, becoming a part of their experience and their reality and them becoming a part of me, touching and being touched, influencing and being influenced, changing.
It’s again time to rave about the amazing Kyrgyz people. The women, men and children were so excited to meet us and their hospitality is unmatched. From 1000m away they spotted us from their yurts, started waving their hands and inviting us to come over, excited to talk, meet and share everything, running down the hill to get us or sending their kids on the horse, and then we said goodbye and continue walking one or five or ten km, passing another yurt and starting the entire ritual all over again. We walked the flatlands for 3 days watching the mountains on all sides towering above us like living and dynamic statues, powerful pieces of art that give life and color to the world around us.
And then we reached Chatyr-Kul (tent lake). This great lake almost touches the Chinese border. It was cold and the wind made it even colder but as tradition expects of me, I took my clothes off and jumped into the lake. Suddenly I saw slimy almost worm looking things swimming in the water starting to attach themselves to my legs. Then I felt a sting. I took a closer look and thought to myself “it’s leeches, I hate leeches”. I ran out of the water as fast as I could, making sure nothing came out with me. Then I took a closer look and realized they weren’t leeches after all but small crustaceans, looking like little shrimp, so I jumped back in the water one more time before the sun went down, making sure to move fast to avoid any more attacks. After sleeping near Chatir-Kul (3500m) we climbed up to the At Bashi mountain range right to the north of the lake and reached 4000m for the first time on this hike, on the way passing by a yak who was hanging out with a band of horses on the mountainside.
We stopped at the peak above the pass and enjoyed a good rest in the sun, shouting in exhilaration to the mountains, grateful to be where we were and feel a part of this world.
From there we headed down the other side descending the gorgeous mountains and for the first time we met two other foreign hikers. Finally we were able to speak some English and have a full conversation with others who are here to experience the beauty and magic of Kyrgyzstan. It was also a sign of things to come. We were on our way to civilization and tourism, reaching a few touristy yurt camps and finally Tash-Rabat, the ancient Caravanserai, one of the oldest remaining structures in Kyrgyzstan possibly built as far back as the 10th century AD.
The Caravanserai was a roadside inn built to host and protect caravans traveling along the silk road.
At Tash-Rabat we met more tourists, people from all over the world, other travelers in this land where we got used to being the only foreigners around. We even met an Israeli group.
It was really great hearing other people speaking Hebrew and being able to talk with them.
We joined the group for a few hours on their tour around Tash-Rabat and the surrounding hill, and got some of their leftover food. Then we looked for a place to sleep nearby. Hoping we wouldn’t have to pay, we met Sultana, a lovely Kyrgyz woman with two young kids who managed a yurt camp and offered us a place to put our tents for free. We set up the tarp and started working on dinner, getting the last bits of our food out of the almost empty packs, remembering how heavy they were when we started out of Kazarman and how great it is to feel them get lighter and lighter day by day. As we were cooking we heard a knock on our tent door. We opened it and saw Sultana’s little kids who came right in and started playing with us laughing, jumping, hiding, and having a great time getting us more exhausted than an entire day of walking. We’ve reached the halfway point of the trail having just finished a 300+ km stretch. I’ve been walking for maybe 1500 km in about a month and half and it’s time for some new shoes and a good rest. And so we decided to hitchhike to Bishkek before continuing on the next half of this journey.
Good rest and happy trails.
