Exploring Kyrgyzstan’s Heavenly Mountains

Where eagles dare: Ski touring in the untouched wilds of the Tien Shan

Eric Kendall makes for the Heavenly Mountains, a Central Asian mountain chain that leaves the Alps in the shade
Photos: Penny Kendall

The heavenly mountains

The Heavenly Mountains. Sounds a promising place for a ski trip. They are more properly called Tien Shan. Or is it Tian Shen? Either, according to Google, and also Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, too. This Central Asian mountain chain spans the borders of China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, so you can forgive it for not knowing how to spell itself. Frankly, you should count yourself lucky to find it in an alphabet you recognise.

For now we’re interested in the bit in Kyrgyzstan. The range covers much of the country, which is sometimes referred to as the ‘Switzerland of Asia’, and is home to the chain’s highest peak, 7,439m Jengish Chokusu. That leaves the Swiss Alps in the shade. Other differences include a lack of melted cheese, more horses, definitely more yurts and a dollop of adventurous-ness. Just try taking a local bus: there’s no app, but on the plus-side, skis and sheep go for free.

Our skiing efforts are focused on the eastern end of the country, a day’s bumpy drive from the international airport near the country’s capital, Bishkek, along the mammoth Issyk Kul – the third largest Alpine lake in the world. This much water has a beneficial effect on snowfall to the east, making it the region’s prime spot for skiing. And though the point of our trip is to explore as much of these mountains as we can by skin-power, there are ski lifts just outside Karakol (the biggest town at this end of the country), which offer the perfect jet-lag-busting warm-up and a chance to practise skiing the extraordinary bottomless snow they have around here. After a storm, it’s likely to be one of your best lift-served ski-days ever.

On another level

This is resort skiing I could get used to: flag down a taxi outside your downtown guesthouse (the Snow Leopard Hostel, in Karakol), pile in, threading skis into the footwell of the passenger seat, and emerge, shaken but not stirred, 15 minutes later at the foot of an old chairlift where a man will sell you a day pass for 1,000 Som (about £10). Full marks for inventive local kit: a cushion strapped to your bum: comfy, warm, and ideal for a choppy snowmobile ride from the top of the highest lift (3,040m) up a long ridge to 3,450m.

That sounds quite high, but it’s dwarfed by the surrounding peaks, some over 5,000m. Now the clever bit: a whole flank of mountain to explore. Initially you wonder if you’ll ever be seen again, right until you finally hit a track, which funnels you back to base, over 1,000 vertical metres below, at 2,300m.

You’re half-in and half-out of domain: what might be called an itinerary in some European resorts, but without a yellow pole in sight and – in terms of scale – on another level.

Round the hairy boob

But, if it has just snowed, you might not notice much difference back on-piste, since – though sketched on a map – they’re neither very obviously marked, nor necessarily pisted. Best for orientation are the ski lifts. Keep one of those in sight and you won’t go too far wrong, especially when they lead you to a mountain restaurant serving shashlik wrapped in flatbread.

Back in Karakol we visit a handful of sights – the colourful wooden Dungan mosque, built by Chinese Muslims; the Russian Orthodox cathedral, also made entirely of wood; the general market, where you can pick up some lovely felt-lined galoshes and all manner of hats and ladies underwear (that’s just what caught my eye, but there’s other stuff too). There’s even a livestock market, which is the place to go if you’re in need of a sheep, cow or camel.

But really you just need to wander the streets, with their atmospheric views of the sun setting on the mountains you’ve just skied, to end up, with all the locals, at Aytmatov Square – the town’s biggest, at the end of a central park and, in deep winter, with the best Christmas tree for several thousand miles.

The town is heated by a coal-fired power station, producing a haze that diffracts the dying light to look all the more exotic. It’s breathtaking in more ways than one, though for anyone who fondly remembers the smell of coal fires on wintery nights, it suffocates you in a nostalgic kind of a way. It certainly doesn’t stop us hunting out tonight’s meal which, since we’re avoiding the few upmarket, slightly westernised restaurants, is a series of surprises; and being served a plate of sizzling spicy beef is as good a reminder of how close we are to China as the coal dust.

The final stepping stone to the start of the real ski adventure is another slice of Kyrgyz life – a marshrutka ‘shared taxi’ minibus, which is really just an experiment to see how many people you can fit in a Transit van. It takes us 70km to the mining village of Jyrgalan. There’s still an active coal mine here, but the village is also a skier base, with several hostels. It’s your ultimate ski-in/skin-out destination, with day touring to most points of the compass. Horse riding locals outnumber cars, livestock wanders the streets, and snow-covered, picket-fenced gardens and birch groves suggest this would be a magical place to visit in summer, when it’s a base for hikers.

For our first tour, we head to the nearby ‘Hairy Boob’, a sparsely forested rounded hill to the south, with several good lines. En route, we pick up a handsome husky who sticks to us like glue, doesn’t beg, and bounds through the deep snow on the way down, before joining us for a second lap. Descending is harder for him than for us – payback for the climb, where he resolutely refuses to break trail and even commits the cardinal sin of treading on our tails. It’s the start of a pattern for the rest of our trip.

Next day’s ski is with Andrey for company – not a dog, but an IFMGA aspirant guide. We head east from the village, climbing through light forest and up a ridge, to descend a broad slab of mountain to a river gorge, before climbing once more, up an adjacent mountainside, chasing the late-afternoon rays on the last day of the year. The untracked snow is deep and dry, we feel entirely alone and far from anywhere, and the skiing – though it makes you want to keep on going forever – also leaves you feeling you can now hang up your boots: done. Why spoil it? How could this experience – the snow, the world-away, utter not-the-Alps-ness – ever be matched?

Horse power and bottomless powder

After a couple of nights in the tiny central Darya hostel, near the Jyrgalan mosque, the three of us move up-village to the ‘Mine’ (several notches above the real mine-workers’ lodgings – chilly shacks we ski past later that day) to join an Eagle Ski Club group Andrey’s guiding, who’ve arrived, appropriately enough, via a hunting eagle display on the south of Issyk Kul. Along with the felt hats and yurts of the Kyrgyz nomads, these birds are probably the country’s most recognised symbol.

Our ski days explore a mix of back-the-way-we-skinned and off-the-top loops. The terrain is almost all skiable, with an encouraging lack of cliffs to fall off, which is no bad thing as Eagle Club skiers don’t appear to ski quite like their namesakes fly. Lower down there’s part-wooded country that feels like a ski resort waiting to happen. It’s perfect and covered with bottomless dry snow that remains in condition days after the last snowfall. There’s even a day off from skinning courtesy of local horses, whose power up deep, steep slopes is enviable. In terms of mod cons, they have central heating but I regret not having a strap-on cushion. They take us to a 3,000m summit north of the main range, from where they canter to the valley while we wobble down on skis.

As Andrey’s guiding colleague Yaroslav puts it: “After horse, legs little bit funny for skiing.” There’s nothing funny about Andrey’s planning and logistics, however: he’s a master.

The next day’s skin starts from the far side of the village, a journey we make in the back of a coal truck. The day after that, we’re off to a high yurt camp – a long climb up-river, towed by snowmobiles. There’s so much that could go wrong with this kind of procedure, but we make it in style to the grand isolation of the camp: just two yurts warmed by coal-fired burners and a sauna-tent.

The highest days of our trip climb from here, and of the hundreds of peaks surrounding us, few have proper names. Andrey and Yaro’s combined knowledge and skills – of the snow and mountain safety, geography, languages, as well as route finding, trail breaking, cajoling and entertaining – have got us a long way from home, with countless fantastic turns along the way. Now we need them to get us back.

Stopping for the view and a snack on a 3,800m ridge, way above the Terimtorbulak valley, Yaro announces: “Hungry guide, angry guide. Full guide, happy guide.” Give the man another dumpling!

Essentials

Travel

Fly from London Stansted to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, via Istanbul, with Pegasus Airlines (flypgs.com), or from London Gatwick with Turkish Airlines (turkishairlines.com).

Stay

Andrey Golovachev is running a Kyrgyzstan trip 26 Jan – 8 Feb 2025, from €1,920, including 10 guided ski touring days, accommodation in a hostel, yurt and hotel, full board; and an option for horse riding, cat-skiing, etc. Andrey is also an expert in Georgia, Turkey and Kazakhstan – see website for ideas. For more info visit primalscapes.com/ski-kg.

We also stayed in Karakol at the excellent Snow Leopard Hostel, via Booking.com; about £20 per double per night, and £2 for an excellent breakfast; home from home with a wonderful, friendly family.

Eagle Ski Club

The UK’s largest and most active ski touring and ski mountaineering club celebrates its centenary in 2025. More than 60 Eagle Club ski touring trips are arranged each year, some guided, others member-led, from day touring to hut-to-hut, to expedition. Membership costs £50/year. Find out more at eagleskiclub.org.uk.