Day Trips from Bishkek

Thirty minutes south of Bishkek the pavement quits and you're standing in a glacial canyon where ice-cold wind pours off 4 000 m peaks. A 90-minute riverside trail climbs through juniper and scree to a 35 m waterfall that slams onto black boulders. Marmots whistle overhead and the air carries pine sap and melting snow.

The 11th-century minaret stands alone on the steppe, a brick finger you can scale for views over the Chu Valley. Down the road the gorge pinches into red walls where the river hisses across smooth stones. Roadside shashlyk stands send charcoal smoke drifting across the asphalt.

Past Kegeti village the asphalt degenerates into washboard and the valley squeezes into spruce forest. A 5 km trail hugs a stream that smells of wet moss; you'll hear it long before the 30 m ribbon of water slips over basalt columns.

You top the 3 300 m Moldo-Ashu pass and the lake flashes into view, a cobalt saucer held by velvet hills dotted with white yurts. The wind carries the bite of fermented mare's milk and horse sweat. Sheep bells tinkle and kumis ladles clack against felt walls.

Konorchek is a dry side-valley off the Boom Gorge where layers glow ochre and rust at sunset. You climb sandy washes while the canyon walls throw your footsteps back at you. Pheasants explode from saxaul bushes and the air smells of hot resin.

The Soviet-era spa hunkers beside a steaming travertine cliff; inside, sulphur water rushes into tiled pools that reek of hard-boiled eggs. Behind the building a 2-hour trail climbs past prayer flags to a waterfall that freezes into blue chandeliers in winter.