Hiking Guide: Ak Suu Traverse: Days 7 + 8

Day 7 (or Day 1, Take 2): Karakol to Jeti-Oguz, hike to Eco-Track Camp 1

Distance: 12km

Ascent: 600m

Time to walk: 4 hours

Taxi cost to Jeti-Oguz: KGS 2,000/AUD$35.25/USD$23.20 inc. tip

Drive Time: 40 minutes

To mix things up a bit for Tim, who had just days before completed the remainder of the Ak-Suu Traverse, we decided to finish what I couldn’t complete but from the reverse!

After 4 days of recovering, my feet were fully healed and my cough had totally disappeared, and I felt in good shape to hit the trail again.

We caught a taxi to the trail head at Jeti-Oguz. For the Ak Suu Traverse, this is generally the end point, but it’s also a popular starting point for Ala-Kul Lake - the section I still had left to complete.

The driver drove through an area popular for day hikers, and dropped us off at Novi Nomad Yurt Camp. Normally, taxi drivers would drop you off a couple of kilometres earlier, but our guy was insistent on driving along the bumpy dirt road to get us closer! We gave him a generous tip for risking his tires for us.

We had a relatively easy walk to our first campsite - a lot of flat, rolling hills and through fields of cows. We only walked for about 4 hours that day, and when we got to the campsite we were surprised to find three guys camping there also - after all our nights on the trails, this is the first time we weren’t totally alone!

Not only did we have their company (well, we set up camp a few hundred metres from them) we also had the company of a lovely dog that kept barking but also seemed to be playing our guard dog from the cows all evening and then again from 5 in the morning, which I suppose was appreciated?

Day 8: Eco-Track Camp 1 to Karakol Valley via Vysokogornoye Ozero Lake

Distance: Approx. 12km

Ascent: approx. 800m

Descent: approx. 700m

Time to walk: 9.5 hours

Tim had said the next part of the trail was not very exciting when he passed it the other day - a mountain pass with not the best scenery. To keep him entertained, we decided to take another route - one that involved a bit of rock scrambling and some scary bits!

There were definitely times I wanted to turn around, but when we finally got to Vysokogornoye Ozero Lake (don’t ask me to pronounce that!) I was so glad we went that way. We were greeted with the frozen lake and snow covered mountains - it was an incredible spot to stop and have our lunch, and knowing that not many people went that way and got to see these views made it even more special.

After lunch Tim wanted to climb up the side of another mountain near a glacier, but after getting his drone out to see what lay on the other side, I quickly refused - it was far too steep and scary for my liking! We decided to make our own track across a snowy pass to meet back onto the main trail, which was a much safer and still beautiful option.

We had our crampons which helped us a lot - they make walking through snow a lot more fun and a lot less scary! Once we reached the end of the snow and back onto the rocks, dark clouds started to roll in and before you knew it, we were hiding under a large rock whilst a deafening thunderstorm and hail came upon us.

Luckily, the storm didn’t last too long, and about 15 minutes later we were back on the trail to make the long desent to the camp site. We reached back onto the main path at about 3:30pm, and then walked a further 2.5 hours down the valley reaching the camp site as it was getting dark. Thankfully, we were once again at a lower altitude than we had been used to, so it was a relatively warm night.