From Almaty to osh - route advice ( off-road )
 

Hi planing going from Almaty to Osh , to ride down the Pamir and then who knows ...
Asking for suggestions on a off-road route from Almaty to Osh .
We will be in full autonomy camping or small guest houses . Prefer to be out of big cities .

Thanks for any advice .





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https://goo.gl/maps/hA1hSvDaDsgenA7WA

It's worth to check the Charyn Canyon in KZ but don't know if here is any offroad sections to get there from Almaty.

In Kyrgyzstan I rode a very nice offroad section with a few mountain passes between Kara Unkur almost all the way to Jalal-Abdad.

Take the south east road up to Song-Kul, from there head to Kazarman and then to Jalal-Abdad through the high mountains pass (don't remember the name)

There is also a gnarly mountain pass to Naryn from the south shore off Issyk Kul.
I didn't ride it but is very famous, it's called Tosor pass.

or go from Kyzyl-Oy over the mountains to Toktogul-Lake...

Mhh, offroad and no big cities...

Enter Kyrgyzstan east of Issik Kol, from Karkol to Namga you will have asphalt, then take the Tossor pass route, go to Song Kol through one of the 2 eastern routes: one starts in Sary Bulak, the other some forty kms south, from Song Kol go south to Ak Tal and west to Kazarman and continue to Jalalabad, or you can listen to Zorro's advice, but then you will have more asphalt.
From Jalalabad you will have asphalt. Big city of Osh is on the way. You can find some off road routes, but it all depends of time you want to spend in Kyrgyzstan...

How "offroad" do you want to get?

I have a whole library of offroad trails between Almaty and Osh starting from the outskirts of Almaty

Can you share ?
Thanks


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No I will not share my archive of trails, especially without knowing your ability, what bike you are on etc. The trails vary from gravel dirt roads to hard enduro tracks.

I did ask, how off road do you want to get ... as in how challenging do you want the trails to be? If you want some recommended trails, that would be useful info

Here is a preview (in PDF) covering the zone between Almaty (top centre) to Osh (bottom left) ... 90% of these coloured marked tracks are asphalt free. As you can see, right from the outskirts of Almaty you can take a trail (marked in light blue here) off road to Lake Kaindy and then either Charyn Canyon or the Kyrgyzstan border, from where is a wealth of off road routes to Osh, depending on how "off road" you want it to be - thus my initial question.

Note also that many of the trails you will not be able to ride without border permits which are most easily available in Bishkek, and take a week or so to get.

hi

Fair enough.
So we will ride dr650.
We have many years off offroad riding, and the spirit is " to ride the track with safety and fun", meaning we don't want to do "trial like" tracks but we will do it if need on some part of the track.




We want to be as offroad as possible, avoiding single trails and (very) crazy stuff :)
very high level would be this on yellow..


Attachment 23235






tossor pass than sonkul lake, still trying find good tracks spots on way that deserve to go there (that's why i asked for your tracks)
then south to the pamirs .







I didn't know that i was not planing to go to Bishkek... if can give me more info perfect..


thanks

OK cool. That makes it a lot easier :)

Email me at wcolebatch@gmail.com. When do you plan to go?

From Almaty you can head to Esik, Turgen and into the Turgen gorges. Then on small trails you get to the Assy observatory and on to Jinishke until you reach the road Saty - Kolsay lake. From Saty it's good gravel road to the Charyn Canyon - Karkara (border) road.
In Kirghizstan, there's a bit of corrugated road, then tar until south of Issyk Kul lake (no alternative AFAIK). Then it's either Tosor Pass or up Barskoon pass and Arabel pass. Both will get you on the Kochkor - Naryn road. Best is then to go up to Song Kul, down to Kazarman and on to Jalalabad (good gravel, no alternative).

Finally, there's a bit of bad traffic on paved road to Osh, but if you don't need to go to Osh and are headed to Pamir, there's a better alternative from Uzgen to Gulcha.

All these roads are on OpenStreetmap, so that should be no big deal to follow (the Turgen - Saty stretch is maybe a bit difficult).

Happy riding,
Laurent
Overland Aventure – Partir – Découvrir – Raconter

We were in Issyk-Kul (the view there is breathtaking) but since we're bought really cheap plane tickets to Almaty, there we rented a Toyota landcruiser for two weeks and drove to Issyk-Kul (we actually decided to spend the night there in the tent). From there we went to Naryn, a nice town in mountains and then to Kashgar (so unlike any other Chinese city). We really wanted to visit Pamirsky and Badakhshan National Parks so that was our next destination. It's so mesmerizing there. And from there we went to Osh (a pretty long route but full of unexpectedly gorgeous views) and back to Almaty. That was one of the best trips we ever had

Dear traveler, you can have a look at this companyhttps://travel-experts.kg/amazing-silk-road.html in Central Asia to learn more about itineraries in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.