Chuysky Trakt High Altai

High Altai steppe under glaciated peaks, ending near the Mongolian border.

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Why this ride

High Altai steppe under glaciated peaks, ending near the Mongolian border. The road: R256. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.

Roadbook

1. Aktash start

   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.

2. Kosh-Agach stop

   Kosh-Agach is the last real town on the Chuya Highway, a windswept settlement on a high steppe in the far southeast of the Altai Republic, close to the borders with Mongolia and Kazakhstan. It sits at about 1,750 metres above sea level on a broad, dry plateau ringed by snow-capped ranges, and everything about it feels remote: the huge sky, the dry grass, the cold air that smells of dust and sage. It is a place where the steppe of Central Asia begins.

   The Chuya steppe is one of the coldest and driest places in Siberia. Cold air pools in the basin on winter nights, and temperatures can drop to minus fifty, among the lowest recorded in Russia outside the north-east. In summer the days are bright and warm, but nights are cool, and there is almost always a wind. The surrounding mountains, with their glaciers and bare rock, rise to nearly four thousand metres, and the whole area looks like a geographical stage set.

   Most of the people here are Kazakhs, descendants of herders who came from the steppes to the south, and Kosh-Agach has the largest Kazakh community in Russia. You will see yurts at summer pastures, horses and flocks of sheep grazing on the plain, and sometimes the sight of riders on horseback herding livestock. The local people are known for hospitality, and hospitality means tea, bread and mutton.

   Not far to the south lies the Ukok Plateau, a high, remote tableland where, in 1993, archaeologists found the frozen burial of a woman of the ancient Pazyryk culture, tattooed and preserved in ice for about two and a half thousand years, who became known as the Siberian Ice Maiden. The area is a protected zone and reaching it requires permits.

   The road to Kosh-Agach is a long, open run across the steppe, with the surface in good shape in places and broken in others, and heavy winds that can blow riders sideways. Distances are large and services are few, so plan fuel carefully. Kosh-Agach has a few stations, shops and a handful of simple guesthouses, and it makes sense to fill up whenever you can. Border zone rules apply near the frontier, so carry your documents and check for permits before heading further south.

   The best months are June to September, and by October snow can already be falling on the surrounding ranges.

3. Tashanta finish

   The road ends here, almost literally. Tashanta is the Russian border post on the Chuysky Trakt, a tiny settlement high in the dry southeast corner of the Altai Republic at about two thousand metres, where the highway that began far back in Biysk reaches the Mongolian frontier. There is not much more to it than customs buildings, a few houses and a very big sky. Kosh-Agach, the nearest town of any size, lies a long drive back to the northwest, so fuel and supplies belong to that town, not here.

   The ride up is among the most dramatic in southern Siberia. After Kosh-Agach the road crosses the Chuya steppe, a high, dry basin ringed with snow peaks, where the vegetation turns to short grass and the wind never stops. The tarmac is fairly straight, with long, open stretches, and the real challenge is the weather: crosswinds, sudden cold, and in winter extreme frost. Summer is the sensible season, and even then you should pack warm gear. The light is fierce and clear, with distances that deceive, and the peaks of the Southern Chuya range stand white above the steppe.

   The border here is a controlled area, and visiting requires the right documents and permission, which change over time, so check current rules before you set out. Treat the border post with respect and avoid photographing military or customs installations. The crossing into Mongolia lies beyond, in a region of high plateaus and nomadic herders, where Kazakh and Mongolian cultures meet. Until the twentieth century this was the old caravan route for tea, silk and furs, and the Chuya steppe has seen travellers for thousands of years.

   Nature is stark and beautiful. The steppe is home to marmots, hawks, falcons and steppe eagles, and in the nearby mountains live argali sheep and snow leopards, though a rider is very unlikely to meet any of them. Salt lakes and streams dot the basin, and the soil is stony and pale. At night, the sky is crowded with stars, and the cold is sharp.

   Bring more fuel than you think you need, plus water, food and warm layers, and tell someone your plan. Mobile coverage is poor, and help is far away. The reward is the feeling of having reached an actual edge.

Where this sits

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