Trekking

A three-year ban on commercial catch in Issyk-Kul and Son-Kul runs to July 2029, but sport fishing is carved out. Closed seasons,…

Edelweiss is not protected here, whatever you have read. What actually flowers in Kyrgyzstan, when, which species are endemic, and why the…

There is no Alpine-style helicopter network here. What the Mountain Rescue Service requires, what an evacuation costs, and what to carry instead.

Those rubble slopes that look like landslide debris are 38-60% ice, and they outlast the white glaciers. What rock glaciers are, and…

Article 57 of the Water Code protects glaciers, except two named ones inside a gold mine. What it bans, why the exemption…

The narrow dark spires in every Kyrgyz photograph are one species, native almost nowhere else. Why they grow on one side of…

World-class terrain, a continental snowpack full of persistent weak layers, and no daily forecast. In the absence of a bulletin, you are…

Cleanups pull tonnes off the beaches at Issyk-Kul, a lake with no outflow. Why the rubbish is there, what is being done,…

There is no hut system here. What actually exists at altitude, when yurt camps are up, and why an Alpine-style itinerary fails…

A Soviet title for climbing all five 7,000-metre peaks of the USSR. Fewer than 600 people have it, and three of the…

There is no reliable mountain forecast for most of this country, so you read it yourself. The daily pattern, the warning signs…

No dangerous predators, essentially no malaria, and two things worth real preparation: ticks and dogs. What to carry and what to do…