Almaty - Issyk-kul

In 2006 I was teaching Math & Computer Science at the Moscow State 57th school. We have a tradition of taking the school kids to hiking trips, so this was their big summer trip to Tian Shan. This trail is pretty easy, but reaching 4 km and featuring some very beautiful views like the amazing Jassyk-Kel lake.

This year the whole thing turned out too tough for several kids, so we took five horses in Chon Kemin valley, mounted some backpacks and kids onto them and the final part of the hike became really easy.

You basically start this trip in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and finish on the Issyk-Kul lake (Kyrgyzstan) where you can relax on a beach, enjoy the fruits and even find a non-oldschool non-soviet hotel with nice food, saunas etc.

If anyone is interested in going in that direction, feel free to poke me for some contacts in Almaty - there's some agency there which can help with tickets, transportation, gas etc.

Detailed description (+more photos; in Russian) at http://aldanur.livejournal.com/243616.html