Ile-Alatau National Park

Ile-Alatau covers around two hundred thousand hectares of the northern Zailiysky Alatau immediately south of Almaty, and the relief is extreme: from around 1,200 metres at the city edge to glaciers and peaks above 4,000 metres (Talgar, the range's highest at 4,973 metres, rises in the neighbouring Almaty Nature Reserve), so the park runs through steppe, apple and juniper forest, Tien Shan spruce, alpine meadow and glacier in a single climb. Wild apple, Malus sieversii, grows here and this region is generally accepted as the ancestral home of the domestic apple. Gorges cut into the range give access, Big Almaty, Malaya Almatinka, Turgen, Butakovka and others, each with its own road, trails and huts. Snow leopard live in the park and are almost never seen.

History

Protection here began in 1931 with the Almaty State Reserve, at first 15,000 hectares in the Malaya Almatinka valley and enlarged from 1935 until it covered the whole Zailiysky Alatau range, with regular research on its forests, birds and mammals. A national park for the range was first worked out by order of the Kazakh SSR Council of Ministers of 3 January 1985, a 1987 scheme for the republic's protected areas proposed it at 280,000 hectares, a feasibility study followed in 1990, and the park was created by government resolution on 22 February 1996 on 202,292 hectares, stretching from the Turgen gorge in the east to the Chemolgan river in the west (Wikipedia, Ile-Alatau National Park).

What's there

• The altitude range - steppe to glacier within twenty kilometres.
• Tien Shan spruce - the dark narrow-crowned forest on the slopes.
• Wild apple - the ancestral Malus sieversii in the lower belt.
• The gorges - Big Almaty, Turgen and the other access valleys.

When to go

June to September for hiking, when the passes are clear and the meadows in flower. Winter brings skiing and closed high routes. Spring brings mudflow risk in the gorges. Avalanche danger persists into May at altitude.

What to expect

Mudflows and avalanches are a genuine hazard and gorges close without notice. Trails are unmarked in places and rescue is limited. Entry fees apply at several separate points. Weekend crowds fill the accessible lower gorges.

Nearby

Big Almaty Lake is in one gorge; Medeu and Shymbulak in another.

Key facts