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Published: August 25th 2007
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Karakol Trekking
One of the spectacular views on our 6 day trek around the Karakol range. Postcard scenery with immaculate valleys with beautiful spruce forests and glaciated peaks When the Russians had Kyrgyzstan as part of the USSR, they made a lot of use out of this lake called Izzyk Kul. It means 'hot lake,' but it would be more accurate to call it, 'really, really big hot lake.' It is the second largest alpine lake in the world (second to Lake Titikaka). So back in the day, the Soviets vacationed here and tested their submarine missles.
Through the kindness of strangers, we found the bus to Karakol and made the trip down in 6 1/2 hours with a Kyrgyz 'truck stop' along the way. We tried a few guest houses in town before we found one that worked... It seems that our lack of Russian makes us less desirable to a few folks. A strange sense of customer service.... we ignore you, and then are surprised that you are still here. Anyway, Yak Tours was not this way. Maybe it's not the Ahwahnee, but they'll let us pitch a tent in their garden for about a buck (37 som).
Turns out there are six others pitching tents there, so it's a tight squeeze! We listen to the local mosque's prayer call at night and in the morning....a beautiful sound. Like an alarm clock in the morning that gently nudges you out of your sleep. Between prayer calls, we heard dogs barking and trying to kill each other. The concept of bringing your pet in, or controlling it in any way.... not here. A trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night required a ski pole, just in case you met a dog along the way (you never know).
We met lots of cool folks at Yak Tours, all planning treks for the nearby valleys. Most of the folks we met were European - mostly French and Belgian folks, but also Canadians, Germans, British... the main language at this guest house was English, so it was easy to communicate and learn about where things were in the town and how others' were arranging their trips.
Although most trekkers walked over a pass that connected two valleys, we decided on the full - four valley/three pass trek.... Lonely Planet (LP) says this will be 8-10 nights, so we plan for 5. LP says the maps of the area aren't very good, and when we look at them, they are expensive... so we decide not to buy one at all and use the LP map to navigate (I use the term map here loosely... can't even guess at the scale of the map, but let's say it's more of a sketch than a map). {I forget if it was on day two or three that we acknowledged how arrogant the map decision was.}
The camping sites we had were all pretty amazing... green meadows, open valleys full of grazing horses, near rivers... we tried to get morning sun, but even when we didn't, the spots were beautiful.
River crossings.... if you use the LP 'not for navigation' map, you get an idea of where you want to be, but it seems that every time we had to choose about which side of the river to be on, we chose wrong. Some local guys offered us a horse-ride once when there was no bridge... for $4 (for reference, a bus ride costs about $.10). Needless to say, we thought this was a total ripoff and crossed ourselves further down the valley. While we were proud of the way we stood up to the bullies, this crossing became referred to as the 'epic river crossing.' Some locals helped us across the last bit, but actually pulled Philippe into a rock - headfirst.
Most days, it rained intensely for just a few minutes in the afternoon - sometimes it was even hail! One day we set up a tent as quickly as we could, another day we hid under a tree. On day 5, the rain hit right as we were going over the last of the passes (3860m) - and we had rain, wind, lightening - yuk... scree skiing as fast as possible, we got down off of the pass. The weather didn't look like it was passing, so we set up the tent and called it a day.
On day 6 (we made our 5 day plan work for an extra day of hiking), we hiked back down to the plains, catching a bus back to Karakol. I don't think I mentioned my blisters... they started on day 1, and each day I had a new blister. The last day was the worst - second only to epic river crossing day... wet feet suck.
Anyway, back to Yak Tours, where we can camp out with the feral dogs, share our experiences with the other trekkers, and eat lagman and drink chai.
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