Trekking Through Zhenishke Valley

We were given the heads up that today’s 9 hour, 19 km trek was to be our toughest day of the trip. With an early start we enjoyed the sweeping panoramas of the Tien Shan Range, climbing over the Kara Arusha Pass in the Sary Tau Range and down into the verdant green valley of the Zhenishke River. The terrain changed several times during the day, which added to the beauty. Right up until lunch time we were able to follow a trail but the last 10 kms pretty much involved the guides blazing their own and trekking through weedy bush, rocky terrain and face high grass, which I did not particularly enjoy. The reward was the scenery which was truly jaw dropping and we had fun crossing small rivers and building our own bridges with tree trunks, rocks and branches. We did not encounter another soul for the entire trek. We had to remind ourselves that we were being treated to the beauty of a very remote part of Kazakhstan and needed to pull-up our big boy and girl pants and press on. Needless to say, we were pretty happy when our camp for the night came into sight and we only had another 20 minutes of walking to reach it. The camp team is a dream team, having everything set up and a delicious hot meal waiting. We all gave ourselves a sponge bath in the river and dipped our hot, tired feet in the cool water to soothe the aches and pains. Thankfully tonight’s camp is much warmer at 2200m altitude and only a sweater was needed when the sun went down. I confess, it was dinner and lights out for both of us today and we enjoyed a comfortable (relatively speaking) and well deserved nights sleep.Read more