The Ala-Kul trek
The Ala-Kul trek is a 53km hike in the Karakol National Park with around 2,200m of ascent in some pretty challenging terrain. It takes in the Aka-Kul Lake – a beautiful, bright turquoise glacial tarn, stretching nearly 3km end to end, and includes a traverse of the Ala-Kul Pass at a breathtaking 3,900m. Unless you jump out of a plane, it’s only accessible through a tough hike and most decide to tackle it over a very demanding 3 days, staying in yurt camps or camping. We decided to do it a slightly ‘easier’ way and spread the walking over 4 days, though as it turned out it wasn’t that much easier at all…
We’d spent a few days in the rather plain town of Karakol a few miles south-east of Lake Issyk Kul to prepare – booking yurt camps on the trail in advance, hiring a bit of kit (walking poles for Helen), indulging in the tourist oriented restaurants here (as we’d all agree, by far the best preparation for any hike is eating burgers and drinking beer) and taking in the meagre but pretty sights around town.
The Holy Trinity Cathedral, Karakol
We hired a 4×4 to take us to the start point, on the way picking up a party of 4 lads (one of whom was from Ilkley!) who were most grateful for us cramming all of them plus their camping gear into our jeep. Then in the midst of a huge coniferous forest we started up through a relatively easy track and followed the river upstream. Though the path here was not difficult I developed an alarming amount of knee pain early on and had to take pain killers. After a while it hurt so much I had to resort to codeine to dull the pain and seriously contemplated whether I’d be able to complete the trek at all. Helen at this point was totally fine. We decided to try & make it to the first camp in any event and take a decision there. We slowed it down a bit, worked our way up through the fir trees and picnic’d by a lovely cascade (cheap sausage and bread with cheese…). Then the hard part started. Past an old Soviet truck converted to a shop selling soft drinks & beer (if you needed beer at this point you were doomed) the real ascent started. Steep tracks through thicker woods, paths weaving between large rocks and covered with slippery roots. Lots of stumbling as we picked our way slowly upwards. The terrain then opened up and we tramped through a wide open field before hitting the really steep last few hundred meters – a rock strewn, zig-zagging 70% incline that needed shin-ups and scrambling. Helen was less than happy with the dry sandy pathway, steep enough to cause constant sliding and slipping.
Karakol National Park
Karakol National Park
We reached Sirota, the first camp, by mid afternoon and bagged the only yurt for 2 people (the rest were all sharers). The knee felt better so we deferred our ‘continue’ decision to the morning and enjoyed the afternoon sunshine by a beautiful lake in the friendly company of other hikers with a beer or two. A fine end to the day and a wonderfully cosy night in our wee little yurt.
Approaching Sirota Yurt Camp
Lakeside, Sirota Yurt Camp
An early breakfast before the hardest day of the trek. My knee felt OK, so we decided to push on, though only once I’d dosed myself up on copious amounts of codeine. This part of the trek is notoriously difficult and we soon realised why. The track at times became even steeper than yesterday, loose dry dirt making traction very difficult and we struggled to make progress. Helen needed pulling-up some of the more difficult slopes and began to question the sanity of what we were doing, as well as my parentage… Still, we pressed on before reaching a small plateau with a fabulous waterfall and a view of the ascent still to come. Another slog up a compacted scree slope with easier walking before the final push to the lake – a scramble up a near vertical path at times. At one point a struggling hiker turned to us and asked us how old we were. We told him and he nodded. “Respect”, he muttered. This has never happened before and we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Most of the other trekkers on the trail were in their 20’s or 30’s and it dawned on us how much older we were than pretty much everybody else.
Waterfall and scree slope on approach to Ala-Kul Lake
After several hours of hard slog, we were rewarded with the Ala-Kul Lake – not quite as resplendent in the cloudy weather as we’d hoped for, but bright and beckoning nonetheless. That said, no-one, including us, dared to brave the icy waters for a quick dip. We opted to eat biscuits instead. We rested, then cut across the southern shore of the lake and up towards the Ala-Kul Pass, stopping for an hour to enjoy some salty tinned sardines and boiled eggs for lunch (we know how to live). The weather cleared up suddenly and we were treated for the rest of the afternoon to glorious sunshine and wonderful views of the lake with its surrounding mountains and glacier.
Ala-Kul Lake
Then the trek up to the pass. Although from where we were it was only around 300m more to reach it, it took about an hour and a half to get up. The altitude was getting to us, Helen needed more pulling-up and we were both getting pretty tired. On some stretches we were only managing about 50m before needing to catch our breath. We were so tired by the time we reached the top it took a while to take in the view. It was, however, truly amazing – the Terskey-Alal-Too range of the Tian Shan mountains stretched out around us. We could see the feeder river for the Ala-Kul lake and the Karakol peak on one side and the descent into the Arashan valley, including our destination yurt camp on the other.
Path up to the Ala-Kul Pass
View on approach to Ala-Kul Pass
About to descend (left), Ala-Kul Pass
We’d heard the descent from the Ala-Kul Pass was the steepest part of the trek, but the reality of what we found was truly daunting. A Kyrgyz guide was starting to take a Japanese couple down the worst of the paths. He slowly led the woman down the slope. She was petrified and crying out. We’d have probably reacted the same way. She sat down to avoid tumbling down to the bottom, but the guide and her partner were encouraging her to carry on. We’d heard there was a less steep path hidden over another rise about 100m away and encouraged them to take it, but the guide insisted they were going down regardless. We left them to it and found the other path down. This ‘easy’ path, for Helen, was an utter nightmare. Though I’m OK with them, Helen is terrified of steep scree slopes (and this was very, very steep) and it took us an age to get down – lots of encouragement, falling out, harsh words, kind words, lots of advice given, lots of advice rejected, patience lost etc etc. It wasn’t our finest moment to be honest. It took us almost an hour and a half to get down the 200m descent.
View of Keldike Yurt Camp, Ala-Kul Pass
Though we should have been pleased to have tackled all the ascents and got through the hardest part of the trek, we were in dire spirits as we reached Keldike, our second yurt camp. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that the only other guests there were a very weird collection of individuals from Singapore and India, the yurts were cold and cavernous and the camp owner clearly didn’t really give a monkeys about his guests. Then it started raining. Dinner was pretty rubbish, though at least we had good sleeping bags to crash out in. I suspect we’d have slept soundly in anything, we were so knackered.
Keldike Yurt Camp
The third day dawned with little cheer too. I had to bang on the door of the lazy camp owner’s yurt to wake him up and sort out breakfast at nearly 9am. We had tepid eggs and stale bread for our pains. We were also supposed to get something for lunch but that never materialised either. I was suffering from taking too much codeine to get me here and Helen was still p*ssed off for being here at all. Our easy third day hiking down to Altyn Arashan through now grassy terrain was also made significantly harder by the rain from the night before, which had turned all the paths into muddy quagmires, a situation made worse by the horses bringing tourists up from the valley to the bottom of the pass. On a brighter (and bizarre) note we bumped into the same couple that suffered a sleepless night in the Fann mountains due to our errant donkey (whom we’d met again in Jivez on our Pamir Highway trip) which cheered us somewhat.
Arashan Valley
Only 10k to cover on this day, but it took well over 4 hours of slipping and sliding and trying to stay upright (thankfully we did at least). The third camp in the settlement of Altyn Arashan was welcome though – a cute and tiny lodge-like guesthouse with yurts (ours had a double bed) and their own private hot springs. A wonderful half hour was spent in the heat of their pool as the aches of the previous day’s efforts melted away.
Altyn Arashan
The weather had been fairly merciful during our hike (only a couple of hours of drizzle) and was still lovely for a while at the camp but then a storm descended and we retreated to our yurt, sheltering the owner’s dog, who’d begged us to be let in with big, pleading eyes. Only later did we discover that they’d never seen it before. A nice dinner with pleasant other guests and spirits were restored indeed.
Unfortunately, more rain overnight had made everything damp and cold. Though our yurt was cute, it was modern and clearly did not have the thermal properties you get from traditional materials (though at least it doesn’t smell of sheep when it’s wet). We slept with all our clothes on, down jackets and all. We’d been lucky with the weather so far and mostly managed to avoid the rain whilst walking, but not today. Though it seemed like other trekkers had opted to go for expensive rides down in converted trucks or Russian UAZ vans to complete the journey, we wanted to see the whole thing through to the end. So ensued a day of constant rain with bouts of serious downpours. We were soaked to the skin all morning as we made our way to the village of Ak Suu at the end of the trek. After a short stretch of slipping and sliding in the mud, the path eventually became walkable and we made excellent time down through the pine-clad valley, eventually reaching the end of the hike in the shape of the wonderful ‘Coffee-Time’ coffee shop, a warm taxi back to our digs and the best shower you could ever imagine.
Leaving Altyn Arashan
Mixed emotions in the aftermath. I thoroughly enjoyed it, difficult and painful though it was and was amazed my knee held up through it all. But though we both shared a sense of accomplishment at having tackled and completed it, Helen effectively ‘endured’ it as opposed to ‘enjoyed’ it (though she admitted to enjoying the few hours at the lake in the sun & the hot springs). I suspect we’ll be changing our future trekking plans to keep both of us happy!!
Simon (9th July 2025)
Slip sliding away, well done for sticking to the tough trek. When you met the lad from Ilkley did you sing to him your masterpiece saying “I know your song” lol.. Just try to take some more rest, give Helen a chance to recover. XXX
Totally forgot about that at the time, though if I’d started singing to him, he’d have rightly run a mile! Helen’s fine btw. No more trekking til we’re back in India in about a month or so….
Well done both of you, challenging but rewarding. The scenery and lake look amazing. Remember you get to experience the unique sights that few will.
Well said Tracy
Looks absolutely stunning!!!
Well done, you’ll look back at it with prude and have a good laugh about all the struggles. What amazing memories you’re making xx
That’s what I’m hoping too. The memory of the pain always fades first (at least when it comes to hiking anyway!)
Well done