Did you know that Almaty, Kazakhstan was a host to the Asian Winter Games this winter?
I was there about six month ago and took a few pictures on the side walls, I call them Chimbulak Murals. Chimbulak is the name of the winter ski resort, if you were wondering about that strange name. I wonder if any of these murals are still there. Probably not, to shame.
Its been a while since I shared photos from Tian Shan mountains. Last summer we spend a few days in Almaty, Kazakhstan and on one of those days we went to hike at Chimbulak ski resort. Thankfully, they had one of the lifts operating and it took us all the way up into the high mountains. From there we hiked for another 45-60 minutes to places were most locals do not go. Hiking there is not the easiest, because you are pretty much at the top of these picks, the slopes are super steep, there are a lot of drop offs and the rock is loose and with sharp edges. At one point I slipped and cut my leg on one of those sharp rocks. It is so high, there is still snow laying on the ground. On top of all this, green hills are covered with bright little alpine flowers. Amazing. So here is one of the photos from that day.
Maybe it is Russian, might even be from some other country. Doesn’t have any markings on it. Bulldozing Tian Shan mountains.
This is fairly high in the Tian Shan mountains. About one hour hike from the top of the lift at Chimbulak ski resort. There is no hiking trail going there and mountains are fairly steep. It was actually a bit nerve wrecking to clime up there, especially that we didn’t have right shoes for it. Of course, as it happens, the hike was totally worth it. The only down side, it was not a sunny day and rain sprinkled here and there. Beautiful place.
In the right lower corner are edelweiss flowers, you can click on the image to see larger version and see better details.
