First off, I should confess that the title of the post is incorrect. 'Kol' is actually the Kyrgyz word for 'lake'. So the title reads 'Lake Ala-Lake'. You get the gist...
We arrived in Karakol on a beautiful sunny day, so the surrounding snow-capped mountains were clearly visible. It's a real hiking town, with many foreign backpackers congregating at Karakol Coffee (the excellent local coffee shop) looking like they've been in the wilderness for years.
We pitched our tents for $3 AUS a night at Yak Hostel in a beautiful garden filled with green space and colourful roses. Shame about the unreliable hot water system and the one bathroom for the entire hostel (I'm sensing a theme) but besides that it was lovely and a great place to meet travellers.
Yak Hostel in Karakol
After reading some trail descriptions from Lonely Planet, we had our hearts set on the six day walk from Jeti-Oghuz to Aksu village via Lake Ala-Kol. It's rated as quite tough, so we were contemplating getting a guide and were discussing it at the Tourist Information Centre when we bumped into two French chaps who had just finished doing that exact walk. Their shoes were falling apart and they smelt pretty fragrant, which suggested they had been in the wilderness for some time. Sure enough, we learned they had hitch-hiked all the way from Paris and spent the last 30 days walking through Kyrgyzstan. They convinced us we didn't need a guide, gave us some tips and we were on our way!
Day One - Valley of Flowers
Trying to find a marshrutka to take us to Jeti-Oghuz the next day proved impossible. We walked up and down the Karakol Bazaar with our packs heavily laden with gear for a six-day hike, following bad directions from well-meaning locals in the boiling hot sun for at least an hour. Taxi drivers kept telling us 'no marshrutka to Jeti-Oghuz' but other locals and travellers told us there was one. After accidentally slapping a man in the face while gesticulating wildly and knocking a girl with my pack when about to get on a marshrutka, we gave up and took a shared taxi. We felt defeated, but it turns out it was a win because there are actually two Jeti-Oghuzes. Refer to map below.
When we asked for a marshrutka to Jeti-Oghuz they had assumed we meant the southern one. I didn't realise our taxi driver was taking us all the way to the trail head and before we knew it we were at the Seven Bulls for 1600 som cheaper than CBT had quoted us.
So now we were ready to walk, but the hardest part of any hike is finding the trail head. After wandering into the extensive gardens of a sanatorium and meandering around for 30 minutes, we thought we had better consult our map. But before that we managed to stumble upon a bunch of Kyrgyz tourists who wanted a photo with us. Once again we were quite the novelty.
After speaking in some broken English with the ladies for a time we decided we better get moving if we wanted to start this walk sometime today, and it was already noon. We retraced our steps to where the taxi had dropped us off and there it was! The track was on the LEFT HAND side of the river. Whoops!
After a long walk through Kok-Jaiyk (The Valley of Flowers) and past some yurts, yurts and more yurts, we decided to pitch our tents near the confluence of the river we had been following throughout the day and the river we would be following tomorrow.
Unfortunately it came with some curious neighbours.
Thankfully our tent wasn't trampled in the night and we awoke still alive and kicking.
Day Two - Teleti Pass
So, we may have underestimated the intensity of today's walk. It all started off well, walking through beautiful valleys such as this one:
Unfortunately, shortly after this photo was taken we lost the track and became dependant upon our expert navigational skills. A serious concern. Following the instructions of our map and our compass, we headed up this...
And over this...
It was not for the faint-hearted. And it's even more concerning when there was no track to follow and you're just kinda winging it. But soon enough, after many false alarms, we saw the pass!
Yes, it is as high as it looks - 3,800m!
And then is started snowing.
And then Claire got stuck in snow.
And I laughed and took photos.
We were so wrecked that as soon as we lost a bit of altitude we promptly pitched our tents well before our desired end point for the day. But we didn't care. We were cold and buggered and just wanted to be inside our warm sleeping bags and pass out.
Day Three - Karakol Valley National Park
After examining our map the night before, we were relieved and a little excited, as today's walk appeared to be relatively short and mostly downhill. Remember what I said earlier about our navigational skills? It's possible our map reading skills suffer from the same affliction.
The descent from the pass was quite steep and slippery and we didn't move as fast as we had anticipated. We eventually made it into Karakol Valley National Park (no park entry fee like we were told) and were hoping to find a yurt to sell us some bread. No such luck! We had been told by the French chaps that we would be able to buy bread from yurts along the way. Thus far, nada.
After feasting on some dry biscuits with cheese from our packs, we pressed on and came face to face with the first hikers we had seen on this trek. 'Where are you guys heading?' we asked. 'Altyn-Arashan' the French couple replied. Huh? We are heading to Altyn-Arashan, and were walking in the opposite direction. After some conferring and map checking it appeared we had missed our turn off. Thankfully we only had to double back five minutes. Talk about a God-send! I would have been very disappointed if we ended up in Karakol three days early.
We backtracked, and were now heading straight up a very steep valley. According to the map, a river runs down this valley (called Kurgak-Tyor Gorge) so we weren't carrying much water. Then we realised the river was underground! Thanks a lot, stupid map. Fortunately we bumped into a young couple on their way down who said they had made the same mistake. They also had plenty of water they offered us. Thanks young couple! They said it was at least an hour to the water source :(
We struggled on up the hill, taking frequent stops to r
We found running water shortly thereafter, and gratefully pitched our tent next to a mini lake in the river. It was just gorgeous. By far my favourite campsite for the whole week.
Day Four - A short day
We were still recovering from doing the Teleti Pass, believe it or not, and even though we were close enough to do the Ala-Kol pass today, we decided to have a bit of a rest day by our awesome campsite.
It was a stinking hot day, so we spent most of it in the shade by the river and I was thankful we didn't have to walk through the heat.
By 4pm, we were ready to move a bit further up river to make tomorrow's day a bit easier. The plan was to walk for one hour. We walked for two and came upon this incredible, partially-frozen waterfall, so decided to pitch here.
And our view was pretty sweet too...
Mental note. Sleeping next to a waterfall is loud. Thank goodness for ear plugs.
Day Five - Lake Ala-Kol and Ala-Kol Pass
Today was going to be our hardest and highest day, with the pass sitting at 3860m. We reached Lake Ala-Kol relatively early in the day, and were very excited to see it had just recently thawed. In Karakol three days ago we were told it was frozen, so that goes to show how hot the last few days have been.
The weather was fine to begin with, but as soon as we begun to ascend above the lake it started to get cold. Real cold.
Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the pass because the clouds came in and we couldn't see anything. And then it started to snow. A lot.
At first it was melting as it hit the ground but then it started to stick. By the time we reached the pass the wind was blowing a gale, my legs were numb and I couldn't feel my hands. Claire was equally as uncomfortable and all I could think of was 'let's get off this pass, asap!'
Unfortunately, the visibility was so bad we couldn't see where to descend on the other side. We scouted around and stuck our heads over the ledge of the pass for a while before finally seeing some footprints in the snow. 'We have to go down that?!' It was so steep it was virtually impossible to walk down so we sat on our butts and slid. Not the safest course of action, due to rocks and avalanche, but definitely the fastest and funnest.
After getting back to our feet and commenting on how we could no longer feel our butts, we scurried down that mountain as fast as we could. I was getting worried about developing hypothermia or my body going into shock. Thankfully, after an hour or so we were in a green valley with the sun shining down on us. We decided to stop as soon as we found some flat space so we could pitch and get into our sleeping bags.
Day Six - Altyn-Arashan
This morning I slept in till 10am! We slowly packed up the tent, excited in the knowledge that we would be having a real dinner in Karakol that evening. But first we had to walk the 16km outta there. It rained on and off, but the track was easy downhill and following a 4wd road the whole way.
We finally walked through the little mountain village of Altyn-Arashan where most people stop to enjoy the hot springs, but we were keen to get to Karakol so gave it a miss. After walking for what felt like forever we finally hit paved road and straight away were asked by a man on the road 'Taksee?'
'Yes please!'
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