Kyrgyz High Route 2019

Over July and August 2019 I completed an 800km traverse of the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan. I had spent the previous few months planning a 1000km route through the Kyrgyz Tien Shan using 30-50 year old Soviet made maps and rather poor satellite imagery. The plan was to see if I could use the skills of Soviet Map interpretation, trail scouting and designing that I’ve developed over the last few years in the Caucasus by being involved with the Transcaucasian Trail (TCT), and put together a 1000km crowd-sourced long-distance trail project through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

The journey began in the dry heat of Kegeti near Bishkek and quickly reached a height of ~3800m on the snow-covered Kegeti Pass before a 1500m descent in a hailstorm. That experience set the tone for this trip. The physicality of these mountains are unlike any I’ve experienced; the route lies predominantly above 2500m and reaches a high point of 4100m and for the length of the route exposes you to harsh and changeable weather in one of the most precipitous mountains ranges in the world, at altitude and over challenging terrain.

Kyrgyzstan has it all from steppe-like plateaus to the alpine. What few established trekking routes exist in the country, most are found in the Ala-Köl area. Though a beautiful region amongst the high alpine peaks, the route is far from the best the Tien Shan has to offer. The real character of Kyrgyzstan is held in the wild and green narrow valleys with sandstone walls on one side and granite alpine peaks on the other; where tourism has not yet disfigured communities, and a family of ten lives in a yurt in their own valley.

The Kyrgyz High Route Project (KHR) seeks to share an experience of Kyrgyzstan, with no intention to alter the landscape through the building or signposting of trails or creation of management organisations. The KHR is an experiment to share the data I collected with a reflection on the quality of the experience of the different sections of the route, and provide suggestions on potential route improvements/alterations, in the hope that other travellers will go out and feed back into the creation of a 1000km crowd-sourced long-distance route.

More to come soon…!