by These were the words every off-piste skier wants to hear: “You need fat skis.” The advice came from our guide Nick Parks and it would only mean one thing – lots of snow.
Parks wasn’t talking about the Alps, but Kyrgyzstan, the former Soviet Central Asian republic bordering China and Kazakhstan. “It’s beautiful, accessible and still relatively untouched,” he said. A mountain adventure, deep snow and a country that Google wanted to locate. I was not hard to convince.
Several weeks later, after a flight through Istanbul, I was in a modern minibus with a group of mostly high-achieving 50-somethings, one with his 25-year-old son, heading east out of the skull gray Bishkek. We passed statues of Soviet and Kyrgyz heroes after 113 miles of Lake Issyk-Kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world.
Visibility improved as the quality of the tarmac decreased. Snow-capped mountains ran alongside us on either side of the car – two parallel ranges, 60 miles apart, separated by the sparkling blue waters of the lake. They were outcasts on the Tien Shan, the “heavenly mountains” that stretch for nearly 2,000 miles through the center of Asia.
Our destination was a yurt camp, 2,300 meters above sea level, in the Terskey-Ala-Too mountains, located near Karakol at the eastern end of the lake. We passed Cholpon-Ata, where the traditional horse-mounted game of kok-boru was played with a goat carcass. As the evening wore on I watched the low clouds casting their shadows over the sandstone ridges and gullies as the sun turned the land a rust color.
By the time we reached Karakol it was dark. We changed vehicles to 4×4, bouncing along a rutted road until we reached the snow line. We poured out there, sleepy-eyed, only to be awakened by a final white-knuckle ride to camp by skidoo.
“Welcome,” said Sergei, one of three local guides, as we crouched inside the communal yurt and gathered blue eyes around a table. “Beer?” Yurts are an almost sacred symbol of Kyrgyzstan – the criss-crossed center of the yurt roof, the tunduk, It is the symbol of the national flag, and they have been around for thousands of years. Ours came with electricity, draft beer and charging points for our phones, not that there was any signal. With the wood burning stove raging, it was warmer than I was at home.
This morning we were definitely slow to start. Decisions: gilet or down jacket? How many of my five pairs of gloves should I give? Where was my transceiver? It was -8ºC but cold and dry and didn’t feel too threatening, especially after the sun appeared behind the pine trees and bathed the camp in light and warmth. Finally, transceiver checks done, our party of seven clients, three local guides and Parks out. Known as “Papa Gna” he is something of a father figure in adventure skiing circles, having led ski trips as far afield as Greenland, Antarctica and Kashmir; and his stories kept coming all week.
For the next three and a half hours we settled into the slow and steady rhythm of the caterpillar train of ski tourists up the mountain. In the forest we saw wolf tracks. But it was the ‘snow leopard’ among us that caught our imagination. He was 34-year-old guide Artur, Kyrgyzstan’s youngest recipient of the prestigious Snow Leopard award, given to climbers who successfully scale all five of Soviet Russia’s 7,000m peaks. He is also one of a handful of internationally recognized IFMGA mountain guides in Kyrgyzstan – a beneficiary of a scheme supported in part by British instructors.
The forest managed to open up the mountains and the views in every direction were spectacular. Up ahead, peaks and trackless snow lay in every direction. Behind us, red sandstone cliffs, gatekeepers of thousands of years of secrets of the region, brought to mind the canyons of the American West. And on the horizon, 60 miles away, the snow-capped mountains separating Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan seemed to stretch into infinity.
At the top of a round summit of 3,300m, we ripped out skins, tightened boots and switched to fell mode. The moment of truth awaited – and it was a rude awakening. The snow was deep but heavy and there was a nasty top layer of crust. We flailed and fell, even Parks.
After an après BBQ platter of salty homemade sausages and chips back at camp, Artur explained where we were going wrong. “The first rule of skiing in Kyrgyzstan,” he said, “you need speed.” He paused to let the information sink in. “The second rule of skiing…”
He didn’t need to finish his sentence, we could guess where he was going. He tried to explain that we needed speed to stay afloat and not sink.
“But how do you stop?” someone asked. “When it gets flat, at the bottom,” he answered, confused by the question.
He, Sergei and the third guide Dennis made a plan to make things better. During a meeting, which appeared to coincide with a homemade vodka tasting session, they worked out where to find softer snow. Meanwhile, I and a few others went to the tent sauna for a sweat and ice plunge in the stream.
And so we started the second day with great anticipation. It was another 1,300m climb to a peak called Fuji South. Once again we reached our skins with a keen eye and entered the powder below. It still wasn’t easy, but the top crust wasn’t there. I remembered the advice and lowered my skis, picking up speed. I held on as long as possible before I jumped in after another, finding the sweet spot of my skis and for a few minutes I was happy, carving fresh tracks in the unmarked snow.
“I love coming here,” Parks told me later. “It’s not for everyone – you need a level of fitness and ability to ski, you have to enjoy climbing. But it’s a great adventure.”
After four days in our yurt camp we moved to the abandoned coal-mining town of Jyrgalan, now a new ski resort that has benefited from some European private investment in recent years. There were two snowcats to take skiers and snowboarders up the slopes, restaurants and a few ski lodges with hot showers, bunk beds and – best of all after the long fall outside the yurt camp – sit-down toilets.
For our last day, Parks hired horses to take us up the mountain. Riding in ski boots might not have been great but my ponies had probably seen worse. We reached our final ascent, an 800m climb chased by a stray dog and enjoyed glorious skiing all the way down to Jyrgalan’s only après bar, Buchenwagen, a converted refrigeration unit.
There I met Cody Scheff, a wild, flamboyant and bearded Jyrgalan seasoner, somehow wound up here from the Canadian Prairies. “The snow can be amazing here,” he enthused. At the bar Sergei was calling my name and pouring another shot glass. “This one tastes like chocolate,” he said. As usual with Kyrgyz, we cleaned the glasses and went down together.
“Kyrgyzstan is not like the fairytale mountains of Switzerland,” he told me. “But this is more of a skiing experience. It is a cultural one. And up high, you won’t see anyone for hundreds of miles. I like that.”
Fundamentals
A 10-day trip to Kyrgyzstan with Grimentz-Zinal Backcountry Adventures (0041 76823 9281; backcountryadventures.co.uk), including eight days of guiding, accommodation, meals and drinks costs £2,600. Pegasus Airlines (flypgs.com) flies to Bishkek from London Stansted and Manchester (via Istanbul) with one-way fares from £175.
