When I went to Kok Zhailau via a different route, I saw an interesting hiking route I had not known about before.
A loop through Gvardeysky Pass to the Old Japanese Road, with a small detour for a great view from Observation Mountain.
The start was the same as the previous route to Kok Zhailau, near the Kazachka river at 43.129373, 76.952791, around 1700 m.
The highest point was around 2400 m near Observation Mountain (which itself is 2350 m).
You can choose your descent: you come down onto part of the Old Japanese Road, and from there you can either descend to the Ayusai visitor centre (gentler, but a rather long road) or to the bus station near the checkpoint (much steeper, but both closer to the city and faster).
Most of the ascent is through the forest.There are a lot of raspberries in the mountains, but we found there are many more berries on the less popular routes.And most of the route follows an old road to a small camping site.A gorgeous rock in the middle of the trees.Trees are tall everywhere in the mountains, which makes any forest look enormous.The camp site where the road ends and a steep climb towards the pass begins.A view up at Observation Mountain, with the Gvardeysky Pass to the left.Even more raspberries.Horses grazing on a slope. Others were bathing in a nearby spring.A view of the mountain range to the north. You can see some parts of the path to the Kok Zhailau plateau.A long-legged buzzard. They are a rather frequent sight on the paths, but I have never taken a photo this close before.That bird was circling some territory near our route.When you get to the pass, you are presented with these signposts. But you can't follow the one pointing to the right, as there is no direct way down there — only if you have some way of descending a cliff.A view of Big Almaty Peak. And the mountain range nearby.A view of the Ayusai visitor centre. An even higher view than from the Old Japanese Road.A view of the mountain range to the south-east. There was a visible track, but I am unsure how far it goes.There is a mountain puddle (or a small lake) at the top of the pass. Similar mountain lakes are not a common sight, but there is at least one more on another mountain that is more popular and has a name: Boar's Lake.A more complete view of the path to Kok Zhailau. You can clearly see the road, the construction sites, and the plateau itself.Observation Mountain near the Gvardeysky Pass. There is a bench with a great view of the whole city.The view from the bench. You can see the whole of Almaty from here.And the bench has a nice quote on it. Definitely worth the small detour.A long-legged buzzard again, I believe, though I am not completely sure.
After this photo the rain started, and I packed my Canon camera away.
I took the other two pictures with my Samsung A53 phone.
There were not that many new angles, and I was getting tired of climbing down.
So, if you want, you can read more about the Old Japanese Road in my other post.
The descent has some amazing views, but was rather scary.
Especially when you need to go around a rock and you can clearly see there is nothing that will slow your fall if you misstep.
The view you get from the descent is breathtaking. Both because it looks cool and because it is scary to look down from here.Some ruins of unknown purpose.
We took the longer way, along the whole Old Japanese Road.
And we spent a lot of the time looking up, not believing that we had come down from the top of the range.
