Tien Shan

Speeding cars and lead clouds. On the way from Osh to Jalal Abad the hell is going on. The road has no end. A delivery truck is overtaking. Black label, yellow background: "Cooler and ventilation". Scrap from Germany. The license plate shows the letters APK. APK for Apocalypse? The road has no end. Two bunkers stuck on a slope and mark the border with Uzbekistan. The road continues along it, writhes over a hill. The sky is gray. It starts to drizzle.

We ride away from the main road to the Sary Chelek Reserve. The landscape changes. Valleys, hills, first firs on the slopes. At the last village before the mountain lake we try to organize horses to trek with kit and caboodle and the two bikes in six days across the Talas mountains. The attempt fails, but we don't let us discourage, ride twenty kilometers back and try it in the next valley. In Kussut Koel we find the young Ulan and his father. They are more accustomed to tourists here. Already the next morning we can start. It's not easy to pack luggage and bicycles on the five horses, so that remains still space for riding. But in the end we make it. "Kak Aeroplan," Ulan says, laughing, as the pack horse is ready to go. Yes, the animal really looks like a jumbo before landing.

Swiss National Park for days: Crystal clear mountain lakes, wild valleys, fir forest. The sun sucks the resin from the trunks, it smells like home. The sweating horses climb the next pass. 4000 meters, white peaks, steep rock walls. Far below the yurt is still there, the sheep are only a swab, the mares red and black blobs on the brown avalanche zone. In the distance, a wall of clouds is passing by. Snowflakes swirl over the ridge. During the whole ascent a family bearded vultures and two eagles accompany us.

The afternoon hours are cold. Sleet in the twilight. We reach another sheep camp, decide to rest here. Our two companions are looking forward to the meat for dinner. Still, it hangs on the drying rack, where it is smoked for the winter. Ulan's father laughs, picks up the ax, chops up bones and flesh. Soon wafts the sharp taste of sheep through the tent, fat and marrow. Luckily it's dark when we get our plates.

We cycle over the freshly snowed Tanimas pass. A picture book lies open in front of us: Glittering hills, the smoke of a single yurt creeps up the slope, like creamy milk it draws white swirls in the blue sky. The door is opened, a woman tilts steaming water on the floor. Slowly we climb, the yurt disappears behind the next bend. Clouds move along the slopes, hiding the pass. It blows a piercing wind. Biting cold.

On 10 September we see our first wolf. It could have been a dog flitting by two hundred meters next to our tent. Therefore, the camera stays in the bag and we joke about our flourishing imagination. In the night it howls from the nearby hills. Amazement and fascination. We listen in the night. A second animal responds. A donkey roars. Then there is silence. Has a pinch of unease crept into the tent? Our skin tingles, the feeling of a little boy who alone enters the cellar for the first time. Luckily there is so much "delicious" mutton around...

Song Koel. Even the name sounds like width. The contrast with the forests and narrow valleys of Talas couldn't be more impressive. Width high mountain steppe, framed by mountains. And in the middle like a blue wonder the lake. Horses and sheep pass by. Some yurts are still standing, but most Kyrgyz, who spend the summer here, have their belongings already packed up and moved to the warmer valleys. The weather has now become unpredictable, bright autumn days alternate with stormy flurries. Soon and the four slopes that lead over spectacular passes on the plateau will no longer be passable.

The autumn is hanging in the valley, dancing around the trees. It remains hanging on birch boughs and shrubs, rips his colorful dress at the tips of sea buckthorn in tatters. Orange, yellow, red. Golden days lead us along the Naryn river and over the wild Tosor pass to the second largest mountain lake in the world, the Issyk Kul. Karakol is for us the starting point for another hike. High up past the foot of the glaciated Piz Karakol, along mountain lakes and over mountain passes to the hot springs of Altyn Arashan. We are no longer used to walk, we get a strong muscle soreness and aching feet. But it's a good training for the upcoming adventure, we're waiting for since longtime: The trekking to the mighty glaciers of Inylchek, into the kingdom of the mountain giant Han Tengri.

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