Aktash is a small village on the Chuya Highway, the road that runs from Novosibirsk through the Altai mountains toward the Mongolian border and is often named by Russian riders as the finest motorcycle road in the country. The name means white stone in the Turkic languages of the area, and the village sits where the Chuya river runs out of a deep valley between peaks that wear snow from autumn into early summer. About three thousand people live here, enough to keep a shop, a small café or two and a petrol station going.
The surroundings are the attraction. The Chuya Highway follows the river upward through gorges, then across the open Kurai steppe farther on, while the high Altai ridges stand off to the south, tipped with ice. The road's surface has been improved over the years, though patches of frost heave and potholes remain, and the bends are the long, open sort that suit a loaded bike well. Cloud, wind and rain can all arrive within an hour. Summer is warm in the valleys but freezing at the top of the passes, and from October frost and snow become a risk.
The history of the road is old. The Chuya Tract was a trade route for caravans heading from Siberia to Mongolia, and tea, silk and furs travelled along it. In the early twentieth century it was widened for carts and later for motor vehicles, and today it carries trucks and tourists to the Mongolian border at Tashanta. Aktash also had a mercury mine and processing in the twentieth century, a reminder that the Altai mountains are rich in minerals. The region holds many ancient burial mounds and rock carvings, including those at Kalbak-Tash, which lie within a short ride and record the passage of nomads over thousands of years.
Treat fuel with care. Stations are spaced out along the valley, but a few have been known to run dry, so fill up whenever you see a pump. Simple guesthouses and cafés serve hot soup, dumplings and tea, and the people are hospitable. Altai honey, sold at roadside stalls, is a good thing to carry in the tank bag.