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Off-Road Tours | An excellent opportunity to enjoy the beautiful natural landscapes on the high mountainous plateau, where shepherds overtake cattle on the summer season.
Route: Almaty Region (Kazakhstan)
Season: June-September
DAY BY DAY ITINERARY
Day 1. Almaty - Asy Plateau - Bartogai Reservoir
Departure from Almaty at 08:00am. Arrival to Turgen Gorge. Sightseeing tour to the Bear Waterfall.
Turgen Gorge located in the Ile-Alatau Natural Park, 90 km from Almaty and is famous for its coniferous and mixed forests, relict fir moss, which is creeps along the ground and forms a solid spruce carpet, alpine and subalpine meadows, lakes and springs, hot springs, medicinal plants and berries, as well as for its waterfalls. The most easily accessible one is Bear waterfall, having height of 28 meters. Even on a hot day water temperature does not exceed 12 degrees, that is why the waterfall mist refreshes and invigorates. The name of the waterfall is not accidental. Here, in zone of mixed forests, lots of places where Tien Shan white-claw bears find their food.
Transfer to Asy plateau. Lunch. Sightseeing tour to Observatory, Red Rocks, rock paintings.
Asy Plateau is a vast plain at an altitude of 2500 meters above sea level, surrounded by mountain ranges with height over 3000 meters. On the southwest side the valley is closed by snow-capped peaks, from which the glaciers "flow down". Along the river the forests are stretching, consisting mainly of the Tien-Shan spruces. The plateau stretched for 40 km and a width in some places reaches 15 km. Asy Plateau – a traditional summer grazing since ancient times, now turned into a pasture of national importance. Along the river Asy there are ancient burial mounds and rock paintings, which are ones of the most high mountainous concentrations of petroglyphs in Kazakhstan. Besides, the well-known in Kazakhstan mountain observatory also located at Asy plateau.
Transfer to Bartogai Reservoir. Setting a camp. Dinner around the campfire. Overnight in tent.
Day 2. Bartogai Reservoir - Almaty
Breakfast at 09:00am. Free time, walking and sightseeing.
Amazing in its beauty Bartogai Reservoir located in the gorge of the same name on the Chilik River, which is blocked by the rock-bulk dam, with height of 60 meters, length of 330 meters and with a set of culverts. The reservoir was created to store water in winter, and feed the fields in the summer along the channel of 160 km length. Release of water through the dam at the Chilik River takes place from June to September for irrigation. In this time the spillway capacity reaches 100 cubic meters per second, due to which the height of the fountain reaches more than one hundred meters. Streams of water under great pressure get out into the open, and breaking into small particles form a cloud of sprays glittering in the sun.
Lunch. Disassembling of the camp and departure to Almaty at 15:00. Arrival to Almaty at 19:00.