CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 498 km, Almaty to the finish - roughly 10 h 01 in the saddle. It goes by way of Kolsai Lakes, Saty and Charyn Canyon. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
The ride follows Kazakhstan Charyn and Kolsai Route for 26 km.
Almaty means place of apples, or near enough, and the apples are not just a name. Wild apple forests, the ancestors of many of the world's cultivated varieties, still grow on the slopes of the Tian Shan mountains above the city, and botanists believe the fruit began its long journey to the world's orchards somewhere in this region. For most of the twentieth century Almaty was the capital of Kazakhstan, until the government moved to Astana in 1997, and it remains the country's biggest and most relaxed city, with wide tree-lined avenues, Soviet blocks and a skyline of snow peaks to the south.
Read the complete Almaty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Almaty is where the day begins. Next is Kolsai Lakes.
Kolsai Lakes are three alpine lakes strung out in a valley of the Kungey Alatau range, in the far south-east of Kazakhstan, close to the Kyrgyz border. The first lies at around 1,800 metres, and the second, reached by a longer walk, at about 2,250, with a third higher still in the mountains. The water is a deep, cold turquoise, held between steep slopes of dark spruce, and the reflections of the forest and the sky in the still surface make a memorable sight. The lakes were formed by landslides that blocked the valley, long ago.
Read the complete Kolsai Lakes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kolsai Lakes comes up 112 km in. Next is Saty.
Saty is a village at the end of a good road, and it looks it. Here the steppe gives way to green pastures dotted with spruce, and in summer, herders bring their horses and sheep up from the valleys and live in yurts on the hillsides. The air is clean and cold, the skies are huge, and the few buildings look small beside the mountains.
Read the complete Saty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
223 km in you reach Saty. Next is Charyn Canyon.
The Charyn river has spent roughly twelve million years cutting a canyon through the red plain of south-eastern Kazakhstan, and the result is one of the great surprises of Central Asia. The gorge runs for about a hundred and fifty kilometres, reaching depths of around three hundred metres, and the most visited stretch is the Valley of Castles, where wind and water have carved the red sandstone into towers, arches and ramparts that seem to have been built by giants. At sunset, the whole thing glows deep orange and the shadows run purple.
Read the complete Charyn Canyon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Charyn Canyon, late in the day. Next is Kaindy Lake.
Kaindy is a lake with a ghostly forest. When an earthquake shook the Tian Shan in January 1911, a landslide dammed a valley, and the water that backed up flooded a stand of Schrenk's spruce. The trunks of the drowned trees still stand upright in the water, bare and pale, preserved by the cold, and the lake itself is a deep, clear turquoise. It lies at around two thousand metres, in the Kolsai Lakes National Park, in the mountains of south-eastern Kazakhstan, close to the border with Kyrgyzstan.
Read the complete Kaindy Lake write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Kaindy Lake. That is the ride.
Almaty → Kolsai Lakes is 207 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Kolsai Lakes → Saty is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Saty → Charyn Canyon is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Charyn Canyon → Kaindy Lake is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.