Planning To Get Lost - The Route

We've mapped out our route using a combination of Google Earth, Kyrgyz government released road maps, GPS mapping programs and the intricately drawn US army charts (charted by the Russians I assume) of the 1950s. It takes us into river valleys and over passes that have been lost in time to all but those Kyrgyz who still retain their nomadic traditions.

A Google Earth screenshot of the proposed route can be seen above. It includes a detour to Murghab, in the Tajik Pamir, for the At-Chabysh (horse festival). You can read all about the event on this website dedicated to the Kyrgyz horse www.atchabysh.com. We hope that the dates for Murghab At-Chabysh in 2011 will make this possible. In 2010 it will be held in mid-July – perfect timing.

You can also download the Google Earth KMZ file to see the route in detail. There's also this PDF containing a breakdown of the route into sections by distance and how long (approximately) each leg will take to ride.

The full listing of the US army maps we used can be found here: www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/western_siberia/

The best Kyrgyz road map we've found to date is this one (4.5MB jpg)

We're also using the maps found on Garmin's World Maps software.

Excepting the Talas and Chui provinces, the route pretty much consists of a loop around the country. We'll be beginning our journey in Karakol, on the south-eastern tip of Lake Issyk, for a number of reasons. It's a traveller's hub, so English is spoken a little and last time we visited we met many helpful and knowledgeable horsemen. It's easy to get in and out of, not too crowded and pleasant to stay in. It also has the best animal market in Kyrgyzstan on Sundays, so it's where we'll purchase our horses. There's also a beautiful valley nearby where we can take our new horses to get them used to us, and us to them before we really set out on our adventure.

The direction of our loop was a tough choice. To the north is easier country – tourists are common along the shores of the lake, food and help are plentiful and the terrain is better. On the other hand, it's also busier, there is more traffic on the roads and quiet places to camp will be slightly harder to find. There's also our detour to Tajikistan for At-Chabysh in July-ish to consider. In the end we decided to go south into the wilds first. The quieter mountains will make it easier to handle the horses in the first month and give us a taste of true isolation. We'll have more supplies at the beginning of our journey and best of all, when we're exhausted and near the end in October we'll have access to creature comforts.

So first we'll head south-east towards China and the god of the sky, Khan Tengri. We'll pass through the largely abandoned mining town of Engilchek then follow the river west to Ak Shyraak. This will probably be one of the more dangerous sections of the route, especially in spring. There will be a lot of snow melt and the probability of avalanche and flood is high. Thankfully to the south of the river valley there is a reasonably wide flattish area that will allow us to skirt away from the river and mountains if necessary.

From Ak-Shyraak we'll head over two very high, but thankfully long incline passes towards Kara-Say at the junction with the Naryn river. Here we must turn south, because the banks of the Naryn are extremely precipitous in places. Instead we'll take the southern route along the old communications road which leads to Bosogo by the Ak-Say river and south of the At-Bashy range. From pictures, the valleys along this road look like excellent horse feed and are one of the best areas for wildlife spotting in Kyrgyzstan.

The next leg leads us south west from Bosogo towards the Chinese border and the Torugart pass. We'll skirt north of Torugart but south of Chatyr Kol. On our last trip we saw Chatyr Kol from horseback high in the northern ranges – this time we'll get to see the other side.

Once we're west of Chatyr-Kol we'll be heading off most of the maps. Only the Garmin software shows the old road leading up the Suek valley and over the pass we have affectionately named “Impossible”. It only looks impossible in satellite view though, the photos that hikers have thoughtfully posted to the internet depict a nice bridle path through the twisted Ferghana range and down the opposite side to meet up with the A370 road to the Irkeshtam border crossing.

This is where it gets tricky – and the big detour begins. We now have to push north towards Oytal. The country to the west is riddled with ranges and no passes are discernible from any map we've seen. Luckily, the part of Kyrgyzstan between Oytal in the north and Gulcha to the west is stunning and rich with grain and grass. It'll be a good opportunity to feed up the horses before attempting to enter the Pamir.

If the heavens align and the At Chabysh festival is timely, we manage to get cross the border and we can arrange food drops for the passage, we'll then follow the Pamir highway south all the way to Murghab. It's territory we've covered before, but in a Russian UAZ jeep – not on horseback. There's no choice after the festival but to backtrack, so we'll cross that long lonely wasteland twice!

Back in Sary Tash on the Kyrgyz side of the Pamir we'll strike west and north. It starts to get more populous towards Osh, and the people here are quite different to their eastern counterparts. We'll be back in vegetarian territory again. The next 500km is given over to fruit, nuts and vegetables. It will probably seem like Eden after the heights of the Tien Shan. We need to give Osh as wide a berth as possible. Cities are no place for horses. We'll “park” somewhere in the surrounding villages and head in for supplies if we can.

From here it's all fields, sunflowers and villages as we strike out for Arslanbob. There we'll relax in the gentle hands of tourist service providers for as much time as we can spare, rest the horses and take in the beauty of the world's largest walnut forest. The more rest the better, because our next destination will hopefully be the Saimaluu Tash petroglyphs, tucked high in the virtually impenetrable folds of the Ferghana. We'll be taking a guide along with us – the chances of getting lost will be too high on our own.

Next will come our first serious stretch of lowlands – all the way along the lower Naryn to Jangy Talap. It will be dusty, and pretty featureless, but we've got a treat waiting when we get there.

We rode from Jangy Talap to Song Kul in 2008. There were flowers, there were forests, there were sweet picnic spots beside rushing streams. The only thing better than getting there is being there. Song Kul is summer central for Kyrgyz herders and noone could blame them for choosing this high altitude plateau lake as the best place to spend their time. We'll be riding all the way from the south-western tip to the north eastern, enjoying the delights of Kyrgyz hospitality along the way, I'm sure.

Now we'll be back in well-known territory. The northern shores of Issyk Kul are a spa haven for visitors from around the former USSR, and further afield. The roads will become crowded but there'll also be some great archeological sites to squeeze into the itinerary. By the time we reach the north eastern tip we'll be following in the footsteps of Timur's Chinese campaigns.

The home straights will be a delight after a long journey. If we're lucky we might even be able to find our horses some Kyrgyz parking long enough to sample the delights of the health spas.

Back in Karakol we'll need to say goodbye to our dear friends and head back to Almaty for the journey home – if we can tear ourselves away!