Khaos in Kazakhstan

The following is a trip report about our (Anton Afanassiev, Ben Sommerfeld, and Ketan Desai) fairly chaotic and injurious trip to Kazakhstan that happened last summer. Also joining us were Anelia Mynzhasarova and Bree Kehler. Now that the journal is about to come out, we’ve finally gotten a written-up and edited version of the story to share with everyone. Hopefully, it won’t take as long to write up my trip report about peak bagging in Mexico… Anyway, enjoy the read!

Our plan going in

The mountains of Almaty are not dissimilar to our own North Shore Mountain Range. On one side there’s a bustling metropolis, and on the other, rugged mountains. The key difference is that the mountains are all above 4000 m, rather than the 2000 m of the North Shore. Our plan was a multiday traverse along the Tuyuk-Su Ridge in the mountains near Almaty. The route would take us approximately 40 km with an elevation gain of around 4000 m. It would take us from hiking, to strenuous scrambling, and then to glacier travel. Our high point would be to summit Peak Sovetov with an elevation of 4317 m.

Anton Afanassiev managed to find a local mountaineer who provided some beta on potential routes, and we planned on a route with the option of several deviations depending on how we felt with altitude. This also allowed some variability based on the unpredictable weather, namely the rapid onset thunderstorms, as well as the extreme heats (~40 °C) of the Kazakh summer.

The tale of Anton and the Electric Scooter

[Ketan Desai] Excited with the prospect of peak-bagging in a new and unfamiliar country, we excitedly landed in Kazakhstan and made plans to stock up on food and supplies and make a break for the apparent weather window. About thirteen hours after landing, with our backpacks stuffed to the brim with new and interesting snacks, we decided to take a ride on some of the local e-scooters to make our way back to the apartment we were staying in.

After spending a solid hour getting the scooters unlocked, Anton decided to test his skills at no-handed scootering and met his fate with Kazakh concrete after nine seconds and an impressive 50 m traveled on the scooter. He had clearly done some damage to his shoulder. After calling to get him to a hospital for scans and treatment, we briefly shared a bench with a “babushka” who attempted to heal Anton by handing him a hard candy (she insisted on handing it to his injured arm).

Anton and his steed PC: Ketan Desai

A quick trip to the local ER, $13 and a half an hour told us that while Anton hadn’t dislocated his shoulder, he had torn his rotator cuff and it seemed unlikely that he would be doing any big objectives. We realized we’d need to figure out some new plans.

Anton’s Scooter Stats

Scouting trip

[Ben Sommerfeld] Anton’s official diagnosis had left us one man short of a rope team for the glacier portion of the traverse we had planned. The weather windows were also far shorter and more volatile than we had anticipated, further limiting our options for serious backcountry travel. As such, me and Ketan decided to scope out some of the mountains that were more readily accessible and less committing. After consulting the guide book, we decided that Peak Cosmonaut was a viable summit to attempt. The guide book described a basic scramble on loose scree with moderate exposure. Having our carefully crafted plans thus far upheaved and in need of acclimatization to the altitude, we decided that a day-trip scouting mission would be prudent. Short term objective decided upon, we waited for a weather window to present itself.

After a short time, a weather window that offered not only clear skies, but also escape from the heat in the city presented itself. With a starting elevation of 2200 m, which was almost 1500 m higher than in the city, the 43 °C weather was reduced to a much more manageable 35 °C at the base of the hike.

An easy ~7 km, 900 m gain hike later and we had eyes on our future objective which, for all the extra poundage we hauled in camera gear, we somehow avoided getting a decent photo of. Luckily, when we came back later for our push to the summit, we got a photo that at least contained the peak. 

Peak Cosmonaut with Ben scrambling. PC: Ketan Desai

The ridge was ringed with mountains boasting glaciated terrain, very steep slopes, and tons of loose scree. This terrain was extremely active, with sounds of rock and ice fall ringing out every 15 minutes or so. Luckily, we had chosen our objective well and the route to Cosmonaut was clear of any major hazards.

Active Glacier Massifs. PC: Ketan Desai

Main Trip (Cosmonaut)

[Ketan] After a few days of exploring Almaty and learning about Kazakh history, Ben and I came to terms with the fact that Anton would not be able to rejoin us for any scrambling by the time the trip was over. We finally had a small weather window on the horizon and we decided to take it.

We aimed to summit Peak Cosmonaut,  the route we had scouted out at earlier in the trip. We packed our overnight packs and headed up to the high point from our scouting mission where we would set up camp. The altitude effects hit Ben and I a lot harder on this day despite having better acclimatized to the 700 m we had been sleeping at. We spent our time in camp identifying plants and taking pictures of marmots and Eurasian stoats.

Eurasian Stoat. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

Marmots. PC: Ketan Desai

After an unfortunate lesson on cooking dehydrated meals at altitude, we enjoyed our undercooked dinners with wild spring onions we picked from around the tent. After checking the weather forecast on an inReach, we learned of potential thunderstorms the following day expected around midday.

We set off at the break of dawn, racing the weather whilst enjoying our brief break from the heat as we waited on the sunrise.

Frigid to Searing Sun. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

We reached the large bowl below the ridge we’d be climbing, enjoying sights of huge massifs along the way – all well over 4000 m. Evaluating the line proposed by guidebooks, we decided this seemed too time consuming/high committal based on our weather prospects. After I had a brief run-in with a European black widow spider, we proceeded to scramble up a steep face of extremely loose scree, taking care not to accidentally hit each other with a rock avalanche.

Once we gained the ridge, we trudged up to our high point and took in some spectacular views of the massive glacier wall beside us. We heard and saw constant ice and rock fall as the glacier baked in the hot sun. We chose to turn around before reaching Cosmonaut as we’d already overran our turnaround time, and the prospect of being caught in a thunderstorm didn’t excite us.

Ketan at the Highpoint. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

Ben at the highpoint. PC: Ketan Desai

An enormous glacier wall. PC: Ketan Desai

With not a lot of time to spare, we hightailed it back down as we saw the early signs of thunderstorms forming. We took a brief look at an abandoned glaciology study site (the glacier has receded back a few hundred meters) and made our way to camp.

Abandoned Glaciology Site. PC: Ketan Desai

Thunderstorms rolling in. PC: Ketan Desai

We reached camp right as the rain and storm set in, and we chose to shelter out the worst of the storm. We could hear lightning strikes and thunder rumbling as we pretended our little 2-man tent would do anything to help. After a quick nap and with the weather subsiding, we headed back to town and rewarded ourselves with some “chocolate bread” at the bottom.

Shymbulak

[Ketan] After hearing our tales of dodging thunderstorms and having spent too much time in town himself, Anton suggested we head up another smaller local peak. This peak would provide some relatively mellow hiking up to a safe point for Anton, with a smaller class 2-3 scramble after that the rest of us could continue on to.

After finally taking a group picture, we headed up to the first peak where we took a few more pictures and deposited the one armed hiker.

The three musketeers. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

The three musketeers. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

Ben, Bree (Kehler) and myself continued on to the scramble, enjoying the sharp and jagged rocks. We bumped into a few German mountaineers training for a larger objective in the nearby region, who complimented us on actually using helmets. After summiting Shymbulak, we headed back to meet up with Anton and head back to town. Everything was going well until I got a little excited and decided to start trail running down. A dusty rock led to my demise and before I knew it I was back in Almaty having an X-Ray done on my ankle. Fortunately it was just a bad sprain but the doctors proceeded to hit me with the tourist tax and placed me in a full blown cast. I cut it off within the hour…

On Top of the World. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

Charyn Desert

[Anton] Now that our numbers were down to only one able body, we decided to do something more injury-friendly. We wanted to take a break from the mountains and visit the desert landscape prevalent in most of Kazakhstan. A local favorite destination is Charyn Canyon National Park, a large canyon not unlike the Grand Canyon in the States. With Ketan’s injured ankle, we wanted to keep the walking to under 5 km, so we decided to book a car and a guide to show us around.

The next day, the car picked us all up from the apartment and we started the long drive over to Charyn Canyon. As we got closer to the canyon, the landscape slowly changed from lush and green to dry and sandy. We were all thankful that the car was air-conditioned, as the temperature outside was cresting 40 °C. Our first stop was to cool down at a river flowing into the canyon. The banks of the river housed a micro-climate of lush greenery which contrasted starkly to the desert surroundings. After this pit stop, we proceeded to the canyon proper. Our route involved descending into the canyon on a large graded trail surrounded by the steep canyon walls.

Injuries can’t stop us. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

Star Wars Destroyer. PC: Ben Sommerfeld

Despite Ketan’s ankle being twice its regular size, we made it down to the river fairly quickly. Though the 40+ degree heat was starting to get to us, so we all took a siesta by the river before heading back up. The way up was twice as slow, and we easily finished off 2L of water per person, even though we had only been out for just over 2 hours. It was very humbling to see how difficult hiking in the desert heat is, but we were all glad to have seen this unique part of Kazakhstan.

Anton’s bonus hike

[Anton] Alas, by this point everyone but Anelia Mynzhasarova and I had left Kazakhstan. I had a few more days until my flight and I had visited every museum worth mentioning in Almaty. It was time to get out in the mountains, even if just for a simple hike. I was still fairly limited by my injury, but I figured I could cross a small boulder field or two. There was an easily accessible hike near the top of the local ski resort (3200 m) which I convinced Anelia to do with me. Although an easy hike with both arms, as I went up I couldn’t help noticing that the trail was steep and very loose. Indeed, there were also some boulder fields to cross. Eventually though, we reached a high point with a view of a glacier. The mountains surrounding the glacier were very chossy, and would rain debris every few minutes, making for quite a spectacle to watch over lunch.

Anton’s High Point. PC: Anelia Mynzhasarova

Having reached some semblance of a high point, I was feeling satisfied and we headed down. My shoulder was aching, making the steep sections even more exciting. However, my extreme skill with one handed pole navigation proved useful and we made it down to the resort unharmed, with another one-handed alpine adventure under my belt.