#kyrgyzstan

Cold, snow, and glacier wait ahead.

Inylchek Glacier.  Our first day on this 60 KM beast.  At first you only see rocks..then you realize that there are meters and meters of glacier below the valley floor. 

Inylchek Glacier, Kyrgyzstan

Such beauty and power channel through this valley.

First night in the valley and I honestly had no idea what to expect at this point. Three days’ hike passed and six to go. 

Over the Pass. The inylchek glacier is in sight.

On my way to the single pass of this hike to Khan Tengri, There was a lot of grass and of course, a lot of horses. I don’t mean to post horses so often but they were at every turn in Kyrgyzstan and they were beautiful.  The days weren’t too long but plenty of sun and no real trail yet.  Just open wilderness.  A Czech couple passed us going the other way as we were packing up this camp..they camped at the pass and saw us below the night before. They were the only other people we’d see for a few more days as it was the very beginning of the season for Khan Tengri. 

And so our hike began.  We took a long drive through the mountains and over a pass at 4,100m and stopped for a few minutes. There was still more driving after that..after around 6 hours we came to a military post. There was a soldier who was trying to help start another car that had stalled.  He shook my hand before we set off to cross a small bridge that supposedly had been built by a local farmer..who was unfortunately also trying to get his car started.  The farmer asked for a bit of money for his efforts building the bridge so I gave him a couple hundred Som. 

I took so many horse photos on this trip. They were such good subjects.

Walking around Karakol…I came across this park with all kinds of cool rides.  I thought it was an abandoned park. The trees and grass were sort of unkept and a bit wild and there was no entrance per se..I walked in a side entrance through another small park. I noticed few people hanging around and a couple of small children riding in one of those little electric toy cars and a few people at the ‘shooting range’ game aiming at metal targets with BB-guns. Anyhow, Karakol is a smidgen of a town so I guess it was never going to be Disneyland. There were some families having a pretty good time though. 

This year’s Silk Road Mountain Race kicks off today and to give you a taste of what’s to come, check out this documentary from last year’s race.