Our final activity in Kyrgyzstan was an 8-day trek in the Alay Mountains, located in the southwest of the country. Although we love hiking, we are not backpackers. So we decided to join a group trek for the first time. We booked the “Best of Alay” 8-day tour with Visit Alay. Osh. It was the best decision. We had a blast on this trip.
We spent two nights in Osh to prepare for the big trek resting, washing clothes, buying snacks, and doing more trip logistics and planning. This would be by far the longest trek we have ever done, and at high altitude, so we were a bit nervous about our ability to complete the trek. So we did not spend much time exploring the city. We did walk around a bit and went to the market, but we skipped out on the main tourist attraction of climbing Sulaiman Mountain located in the center of the city. I felt a bit guilty about neglecting Osh, but sometimes we have to prioritize planning and rest.
Knowing we would only be eating homemade Kyrgyz food for eight days, we did try to eat non-Kyrgyz in Osh. We ate another disappointing burger (we know but we’re still tempted and try), had a massive pizza/shwarma/fries combo deal, and ate at the fancy Kyrgyz restaurant Navat again.
Day 1: An Easy Introductory Day
On our third morning in Osh, we checked out of our guesthouse and took a Yandex to the Visit Alay office at 8:30am. We were the first ones of our group to arrive. Others started to trickle in and our group of 7 was complete by 9am. I had been a bit nervous about who we would have to spend the next week with, but everyone was so friendly and nice. There were 3 Americans, 2 Belgians, 1 Brazilian, and 1 South African. We received a quick orientation and we were soon off to the village of Sary Mogul in the Alay Mountains with our trusty guide Musa.
We first made a quick stop at a market outside of Osh for people to buy snacks and water. We had already done our snack run, so we just bought a round bread to snack on during the ride. Then we drove two more hours and stopped at a yurt camp for lunch. After a huge lunch, it was time for our first hike: a short hour hike up the nearby mountain to Isumrudnoe Lake. Unfortunately, it was dry so there was no lake, but it was still beautiful. It wasn’t a long hike, but it was a steep climb where I sweated and felt a bit short of breath.
Luckily, it looked like everyone was struggling a little bit. So my fear that I would be the clear weak link of the group was assuaged. We all laughed and joked about how this was merely the test run and how we were all unsure of our ability to complete the 8 days. This was the only hike of the day and then we made our way to Sary Mogul village.
Sary Mogul is a quiet village in the Alay Mountains with views of the snow-capped Pamir Mountains to the south. It is a popular starting point for both Alay and Pamir Mountain hikes. We settled into a guesthouse run by our guide Musa’s family for the night where we had a delicious dinner, hot shower, and a comfortable bed. We all said goodnight in anticipation for Day 2 which was supposed to be the hardest day of the entire trek.
Day 2: A Long, Tough Day Through the Sary Mogul Pass (Nate’s Favorite Day)
We started bright and early on Day 2 for our 12 km hike where we would be peaking at 4306m. We had breakfast at 7am and then drove 45 minutes to the trailhead. Our tour thankfully included two porter horses and horsemen who met us at the trail. I was nervous about altitude sickness so I took Diamox, but I think this was a mistake. Before we started even hiking, my hands and feet were feeling numb and tingly which has never happened before.
Even though I had not felt the lack of oxygen at Ala Kul, here, I felt it. As soon as we started hiking, I could feel myself gasping for breath. The first portion was not too steep of a climb, but I quickly got out of breath and had to hike extremely slowly at the end of the group. Once I was winded, it was so hard to catch my breath again. It was a strange sensation where my legs felt fine (not tired at all) while having numb extremities and feeling like I wasn’t getting enough air. Still, it was a beautiful hike, so it was okay. I found out later from one of our trekking friends that her doctor had told her to not take Diamox until you are over 3300m because it slows blood circulation. I took it at a lower elevation (as directed by my travel nurse), so I think the numbness was from slowed circulation.
Despite my difficulties, I persisted and was able to make it to the top of Sary Mogul Pass without having to get on our porter horses. The horses could also be used by anyone who was too tired. I did not want to be the one that had to ride the horse, so I pushed myself. It was pure mental grit that got me through, especially during the last switchback ascent to the top where I also started to get a headache.
It was all worth it when we reached the top. My headache magically disappeared, and I was breathless at the sight in front of me. Snow-capped peaks and mountain lakes. I felt a rush of pride and accomplishment and reveled at being the highest I had ever been at 4306 m (14,127-ft). We took so many pictures and I wish I could have spent more time at the time taking it all in. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time as we still had a long way to our yurt camp.
The descent was very steep with loose rock. Thankfully, we had been trained for this at Ala Kul where the descent was even steeper and more slippery. So with our newfound technique and confidence, Nate and I were able to climb down pretty quickly and were the first two down. We did have a scare when a couple rocks went loose and tumbled down the mountain directly towards Nate. I was further up so I heard the warning yells from the group and was able to yell down to Nate in time for him to scurry to the side to avoid. Thank goodness! This was the biggest scare of the entire trek.
Once we descended, it started raining and hailing. But again, we were used to the sudden weather changes from the Ala Kul trek so we weren’t phased. The rest of the way to the yurt camp was flat and easy. We reached the yurt camp around 5pm. It is amazing to have a yurt camp in such a remote place that cannot be reached by car. My guess is that it was at least a couple hours horse ride away from the nearest village. But I was glad it was here.
We were ushered into the dining yurt for tea and snacks which had a stove inside for warmth. We were all exhausted and I struggled to stay awake until dinnertime at 8pm. My allergies had started with a vengeance in the afternoon so I was feeling miserable. Dinner was fine, just stir-fried potatoes. It was cold, so we were advised to all sleep in the dining yurt since it had the stove. Five of us decided to sleep in the dining yurt so it was like a big slumber party. We quickly cleared the tables and laid blankets on the floor to quickly go to sleep. Unfortunately, the stove fire died out in the middle of the night so I was too cold and uncomfortable on the ground for a good night’s sleep. I would have to get used to these conditions.
Day 3: Another Long Day, but Without the Rewarding Views
Musa told us that Day 3 would be long, but easy, it “gentle” as he liked to say. I would disagree with his statement. The first part of the hike was easy because it was downhill to a village in the valley for lunch and a shower. Going downhill, I did not feel any of the altitude symptoms.
Once we reached a dusty unpaved road in the valley, we were picked up by a truck where we climbed in the back to drive to the guest house. We drove the last few kilometers because there was so much truck traffic coming from a nearby coal mine making it a dusty and unpleasant walk. This was a fun experience as I had never driven in the back of a truck before!
Lunch was a delightful break. Although a midday shower before the hot uphill portion of the hike sounded strange, we all showered since there would be no shower at the yurt camp.
We resumed our hike around 2pm. It was a steady, gentle upward climb, but the oppressive afternoon heat and sun made it exhausting. It didn’t take more than a couple minutes to be drenched in sweat again. I would take the lack of oxygen at cold high altitude over hiking in the heat. After four hours, we finally reached our yurt camp for the night around 6pm. It was a beautiful, idyllic yurt camp nestled in a green pasture among hundreds of horses, sheep, yaks, and donkeys.
As usual, we had tea and snacks before dinner, which is usually enough food for dinner. Then came the actual dinner of soup/appetizer and an entrée with plenty of sweets laid out on the table. All of our hosts made sure that we had more than enough food. Full and content, we went to bed. This time, I overcompensated with extra blankets because I had been too cold the night before and was almost too warm at night.
Day 4: The Gorgeous Three Dragon Gorge – My Favorite Day
After two tiring days, we were rewarded with an easy and beautiful hike on Day 4 through the Three Dragon Gorge. Musa never explained why the gorge was called “Three Dragon” or if a certain group of rocks was the “Three Dragons”. I tried to ask, but he didn’t seem to understand the question.
The path was generally flat following a red rock gorge amongst green mountains and snow-capped mountains in the background for hours. The contrast of colors and formations was unbelievably pretty. I took way too many pictures – it was hard to not considering how beautiful everything was! There was one massive red rock mountain that I nicknamed “pride rock”, there were parts of the gorge that looked like hoodoos in formation, round bald rocks – the diversity was amazing. Even if I took a picture of a certain rock, I’d turn a corner and each angle seemed to make the same thing look totally different. So, I’d take another picture. It was nice to have an easy hike so that we could take time to look around instead of needing to pay attention to our feet the whole time.
I was sad when we finally exited the gorge after several hours of walking. I felt like I could walk through it forever. But we had one more interesting stop, what Musa called a “holy place” with naturally clean drinking water. We stopped by a river with a stairway going up to what looked like a cave. Inside was a pool of water formed from water dripping from the rock above. The water was very cold and crystal clear. We refilled our water from this pool and Musa assured us it was clean and safe to drink. It tasted so refreshing! We took an extended break here and I took off my shoes to dip my tired feet in the freezing river which revived them in less than ten seconds.
The rest of the walk to our guest house for the night was through a village along an unpaved road. It took us about another 1.5 hrs to reach out guest house by 2:30pm. We immediately had lunch and had the rest of the afternoon to rest and relax. Nate and I hand washed some dirty clothes in the river running through the guest house. It was so hot that everything dried in just a couple hours. Then I took a long nap until dinner. I had not been sleeping well and my allergies had not stopped raging since Day 2, so I felt tired and grouchy whenever we stopped hiking.
As always, we had a delicious dinner around 7:30pm and then went to bed. Day 5 would also be an easy day so we were allowed to sleep in until 9am.
Day 5: Crashing a Kyrgyz Family Reunion
Day 5 was another easy and short day. After a late 9am breakfast, we headed to our next yurt camp. It was only a four hour walk from the guest house mostly along an unpaved road. This hike itself was maybe my least favorite. The surroundings are pretty, but it felt a bit monotonous just walking on a road for hours.
Part way there, we came across some ladies making cheese. They had already prepared a dry powdery cheese that looked kind of like feta, and they were rolling them into big balls to dry. We were invited to join them. So we all washed our hands and tried rolling the cheese into balls. The cheese tasted like saltier cotija cheese. It was so nice of them to let us join.
When we finally got to our yurt camp, I was surprised by the number of people. It seemed like there were over forty people there. It turned out that the same family that ran the guest house also ran the yurt camp, and they were having their annual family reunion. There were 6 elderly brothers, and all of their kids and grandkids (and maybe great grandkids?) were gathered. It was almost overwhelming how many kids there were running around everywhere.
Nate and I joined some kids playing a game with small rocks and it turned out that in Kyrgyzstan, they play a very similar game as in Korea (in Korea called “gongi”) where you throw and try to catch the other rocks (somewhat like Jacks). The kids and some adults seemed surprised that I was able to play well so I tried to explain that we have a similar game in Korea, but I’m not sure if they understood. I then went to take a nap while Nate continued to play with the kids and then participated in a family volleyball game. He is always joining in on the sports!
After my nap, it was time for our Krygyz bread making experience. We all got a ball of dough to knead, which was harder than it looked. Then we had to flatten it out in a circle. It needed to rise for about 20 minutes and then it was ready to bake. It was baked not in a traditional oven as we would think, but by sticking it on what I can best describe as a huge pan cover and cooking it over a fire. It was cool to watch and it probably only took about 20-minutes for the bread to be fully baked. I hadn’t been that impressed with Krygyz bread, but this freshly baked bread was so fluffy and delicious. We were all clamoring to have more bites. But we still had dinner, so we all needed to exercise self-restraint to not fill up on bread.
We continued to play with the kids and enjoy watching the family interact until they all left before dinnertime. Many of them had driven hours to gather so I was surprised that the reunion was only for the day. We said our goodbyes with smiles as they drove off. It felt so quiet after the family left.
As per usual, we had dinner together. After dinner, Chris, our Belgian friend, brought out his Kyrgyz cognac for the group to share. Krygyz cognac is supposed to be very good and supposedly help with altitude sickness. I had never had cognac before and it was really good! I’ll have to try other cognacs to compare. We had a great time sipping cognac and chatting into the night.
Day 6: A Peak of Manas (Lenin) Peak at Jiptick Pass
We picked up the pace again on Day 6 for a 16-km trek after two easy days. We had breakfast at 7am and headed out for a 4-hr uphill climb to Jiptick Pass which is at 4,185m. Fortunately, I did not struggle with the altitude this day like I did on Day 2; but it was still tiring and I had to keep a slow and steady pace, especially during the continuous switchbacks during the last two hours.
When we finally reached the Pass, we were lucky to be able to see Manas Peak (more commonly known as Lenin Peak, but it was renamed to Manas Peak in Kyrgyzstan a couple years ago) in the Pamir Mountains in the distance. You can only see Manas Peak on clear days so we were lucky. It got cloudier just a little later so we had good timing. We took an extended break at the Pass and then descended. The descent was not too steep, but it was slippery in some parts.
Once we descended, we took a lunch break and then had a three-hour walk to our yurt camp. It was flat and easy, but it was very hot with the sun beating down on us. We reached our yurt camp in Darbazatash Valley, operated by Musa’s uncle, around 3:20 pm.
We had the usual tea time and snacks. But for the first time, we had beer! Nate and I had cold, refreshing beers that were cooled in the river while playing cards with Max and Telma. They taught us a new card game called “Shithead” which we really enjoyed. We were soon joined by the others. We noticed that there were traditional Kyrgyz attire and hats in the yurt for us to try, so we all took turns wearing the robe and different hats. It was a really fun time and I was impressed that the outfit flattered everyone.
Then we had our next cultural experience of milking a cow. Musa’s aunt demonstrated how to milk a cow and we all tried — some more successfully than others. This was my first time and I was surprised at how the udder felt. I succeeded, but I wasn’t the best. I’d say that Nate was better at it then me.
We then had dinner and went to bed. This night, we had our own private yurt which was nice. It was a really fun day.
Day 7: Heading to the Tulpar Kol Lake in the Pamir Mountains
Day 7 was when it felt like our trek was coming to an end as we were leaving the Alay Mountains. We said goodbye to Musa’s aunt and uncle who were so nice and said the sweetest parting words, welcoming us back anytime and wishing us and our families well.
We had an easy and pretty 4-hr walk back to Musa’s home in Sary Mogul along an unsaved road. We passed two coal mines where 80% of the people at Sary Mogul work. Musa also told us that a lot of men in his village go abroad to work during the winter to countries like Russia and Korea which I did not know.
Once we got to Musa’s home and guest house, we had a delicious lunch and an extended break to take a hot shower. At 3pm, we got into a van and drove an hour to Tulpar Kol Lake in the Pamir Mountains that continue into Tajikistan. This is a popular tourist destination and in contrast to the isolated yurt camps we stayed at in the Alay Mountains, there were a dozen yurt camps by the lake.
Tulpar Kol (3,500 m) is a popular starting point for hikers and alpinists that climb Lenin Peak (7,134 m / 23,405-ft). Lenin Peak is popular because it is the easiest 7,000+ meter peak to climb. We were only going to hike to Traveler’s Pass (4,100 m), a viewpoint for Lenin Peak, so we stayed by the lake. But there is a large base camp further in and three campsites for those climbing higher. Musa told us that there are 200 people that stay every night at Camp 1 which is located at 4,400 m. Camp 2 is at 5,300 m and Camp 3 is at 6,100 m). I was surprised at how trafficked the mountain was!
We had a few hours until dinner so Nate and I went on a walk around Tulpar Kol. We were rewarded with beautiful views of the snow-capped Pamir Mountains and our yurt camp. It was well-worth the 1.5-hr walk. Strangely, no one else was walking around so it felt like it was just us and the lake.
We all went to bed quickly after dinner as we had an early and long trek for our last day.
Day 8: Climbing Traveler’s Pass and Saying Goodbye
We started bright and early with breakfast at 6:30 am to try to beat the alpinist crowds. We crossed a river and passed the Lenin Peak Base Camp which was massive before we started the ascent to Traveler’s Peak. It was a cloudy day, but the massive snowy mountains were majestic.
I thought I had overcome altitude sensitivity, but unfortunately it heavily affected me again on the last day. I walked very slowly at the back of the group taking efforts to not lose my breath. It was a steady climb with some tricky slippery portions and long zigzag switchbacks up the side of the mountain. Aside from the altitude, it was technically not that difficult of a hike.
We were greeted with close up views of the mountain peaks at the top. Unfortunately, it was still cloudy so we did not get clear views of Lenin Peak. It also started to rain while we were at the Pass so we did not stay too long before we descended. I was a bit disappointed at this being our last hike of this epic 8-day journey. We still took a lot of pictures.
There weren’t many people when ascending, but the trail started getting very busy when we descended so I was glad that we started early. There were many elderly people (some looked in their 70’s) hiking and I was impressed and inspired to keep in good health to be able to do this my entire life.
It started to clear up on our way back to the yurt camp so we were able to at least get clearer views of the mountains even if it wasn’t at the viewpoint. Once back at the yurt camp, we gathered our bags and drove back to Musa’s home in Sary Mogul for lunch. Musa and his wife kindly gave us gifts — scarves for the women and Al-Kalpaks (traditional hats) for the men. We then made the 3.5-hr drive back to Osh. It was dead silent in the van as if the adrenaline that was fueling us all turned off as it sunk in that this was the end.
We arrived in Osh around 7pm and we all said our goodbyes. It felt bittersweet. We started as seven strangers, but over these eight days, we shared a special adventure together that we will all remember for the rest of our lives. It was such a wonderful group. Everyone is an adventurous world traveler, as one would expect of a group of hikers in Kyrgyzstan, so I would not be surprised if we ran into each other again in future travels!
After a week of eating only Kyrgyz food, we naturally went to eat dinner at — can you guess? Yes, a Korean restaurant. Osh had a couple Korean restaurants, including one with good reviews. We ordered Korean fried chicken and bibimbap which were pretty good. The owner was a Korean man so I chatted with him for a bit. He talked about how much more affordable Osh was compared to Bishkek, but how housing prices were skyrocketing due to the influx of Russians coming to Osh due to the war and a large population of South Asian medical students studying in Kyrgyzstan. I thought it was very interesting.
We spent the next day in Osh preparing for our next country: Uzbekistan.
To end, here are pictures of a few of the home cooked meals we ate on our 8-day trek.
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