Kyrgyzstan - suite et fin...

Day 6 - Breakfast



A nice bonus - 20cm of fresh with no wind greeted us this morning!



Turning out nice again...



Mike R in camouflage









Last night bonfire






Last day - time for a quick powder lap before heading back down to the village




Running repairs to Mike's bindings - nothing a couple of cable ties and some duct tape couldn't sort out...



Back down in Ichke Jergez, time for another trip with Schumacher back to Karakol for a welcome shower and a good night's sleep.




The next morning we embarked on another white knuckle drive round lake Issyk-Kul and through the Shoestring Gorge back to Bishkek in very wintry blizzard conditions...



Huge thanks to Ryan at 40 Tribes Backcountry - great set-up, I will definitely be back for more!

Kyrgyzstan part 3

Day 4 - Sunshine, Powder



Yesterday's summit:




Todays goal:




Great snow:




But care needed - up high NE slopes had all released spontaneously along with som cross-loaded NW aspects, but care was needed everywhere in the trees!



2 x 30-40 cm layers releasing...



But great skiing to be had with careful slope selection:



Me:




Paul



Tom



On day 5 we went questing into the trees to try and find a low route into the next valley East - loads of potential here, but the higher routes in all involved skiing dodgy potentially loaded slopes. Unfortunately after some hardcore tree-bashing we had t admit defeat, and nipped back up for a lap on the West face from the 'Lunch Spot' at 3200m on the main ridge. 500m of nice (if heavy) powder, then homeward-bound for the yurt..

Kyrgyzstan part 2

Day 2 dawned cloudy & snowy - time for some laps in the trees lower down...






On Day 3 the skies were clearer so we set off for the main summit behind the yurt - 900m vertical with a bit of easy scrambling to get right on top followed by a great run down a subsidiary ridge to the NNE.






Summit of Pt 3450m ("Mountain of the Gentle Slopes")





Once off the main ridge the snow was pretty good.



And just got better. Paul shredding:



And testing the boundaries...








The 2 Mikes relax with a beer while Azamat prepares dinner: