Route length: 350 km (700 km round trip)
Travel time: 6-7 hours to Lake Tuzkol, 1-1.5 hours to Komershy canyon
Seasonality: April-October
Best time to travel: June-August
Tour duration: 2 days
The way to the lake and to the canyon goes through the Ketmen mountain range, located 400 km from Almaty.
Interesting facts:
• The word “Ketmen” in the Turkic language is a hand tool like a hoe, which is used for hoeing crops, digging and cleaning ditches. There is a legend according to which these mountains got their name on the day when the land relief was created by the Creator. Tired of working, he threw the useless tool on the ground, and where it fell, a small but very beautiful mountain range grew up.
• The ridge does not have sharp changes in height and, therefore, does not have clear peaks;
• The height does not reach the snow line when the glaciers are formed, and therefore does not have glaciations and snowfields, but has a permafrost zone; the Peaks are flat and wide. The slopes are flat and almost treeless.
• The total length of the ridge is 310 km, it is located on the territory of two States Kazakhstan and China;
Tuzkol lake or Kazakhstan’s Dead sea
* Bitter-salty mountain lake, the salinity of the water reaches 300 g per liter (at the Dead sea in the area of 350) and varies depending on the season;
• From Kazakh it is translated “salt lake” (Tuz-salt; Kol-lake);
• During the Soviet Union, salt was extracted on an industrial scale on the lake, now only abandoned buildings located at the water’s edge remind of this;
* Located in the mountain frame of the Kegen depression (1959 m above sea level), 70 km East of Kegen (on the highway to Narynkol);
* The lake is medium-sized, about 5 km long and up to 1 km wide in places;
• No river flows into the lake, and nothing flows out of it. Tuzkol is fed exclusively by underground sources;
• The shores of the lake are rich in healing mud, which is used in hospitals of Almaty;
• Maximum depth of 3 meters, average depth of 0.3 meters;
• In clear weather, the seven-thousandth Tien Shan peaks — Khan Tengri peak (7010 meters above sea level) and the right-hand trapezium of Victory peak (7439 meters above sea level) are visible from Tuzkol);
• The lake is teeming with the ruddy shelducks, the young growth eats the plankton;
* The noise of ducks is heard all night and with the first rays of the sun it even get twice louder.
Komershy Canyon
The Canyon is famous for its white rocks, incredible beauty, and a Holy spring. Locals make a pilgrimage here. In a place where should be an ordinary flat lifeless rock, water comes out of nowhere! Out of stone!
Around the spring, some stones are covered with a thin film of water, others “cry” with a drop and the main source erupts from a deep niche of the rock as a miniature waterfall.
Overnight accommodation-tent camp.
Hashtags / keywords to search for:
#garintrip_комерши #garintrip_тузколь #serotonal
Komershy Canyon, lake Tuzkol