Today I’m taking a virtual trip back to Tian Shan mountains. I like the contrast between alpine flowers and mid summer snow. Snow was fairly dirty by this time and we didn’t play snowballs, and fortunately my daughter didn’t try to eat it. She likes to taste fresh snow, you know, one of those things our kids like to do, just I used to eat some as well.
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.
We had good day exploring around lake Issik in the Tian Shan Mountains. When we came back from the hike we were greeted by the new parking lot attendant – a Donkey. He was very curious about us and tried to get us to pay him, food or what. He was actually much closer than he appears, it was taken with 14mm focal length, him trying to stick his face right into the camera. To see a larger version and examine those facial hair details just click on the image and it will take you to my photo gallery.
At one point he almost grabbed my daughters’ sleeve, she was quick enough to pull it away. Uhh… he was close…
