Kyrgyzstan on horseback: Song-Kul and the nomad highlands

In Bishkek, a shared marshrutka driver told me that in the mountains, a man without a horse is like a bird without wings. Three days later, six hours into a climb over the 3,400-metre Tuz-Ashuu pass on a sturdy Kyrgyz mountain pony that had decided reins were mere suggestions, I had a less romantic perspective on equestrian anatomy.

Song-Kul is an endorheic alpine lake sitting at 3,016 metres in the central Tien Shan. For nine months of the year, the basin is locked in ice. For ninety days from June to August, semi-nomadic Kyrgyz herders move their families, yurts (boz-ui), and livestock up to these summer pastures (jailoo).

The ride from Kyzart village

The trail starts in Kyzart, a dusty village of whitewashed mud-brick compounds in the Kochkor district. Arranging horses through the Community Based Tourism (CBT) office costs roughly 2,500 KGS (€27) per day per horse, including a local guide.

The saddle was a traditional wooden frame padded with three thick layers of felt and a sheepskin rug. By hour four, your inner thighs ache in muscles you didn't know you possessed, but the horse climbs shale ridges and crosses boggy alpine streams with an effortless, rhythmic surefootedness no human hiker could match.

The scale of the Central Asian steppe dissolves distance. A yurt camp that appears twenty minutes away across the flat green plain takes two hours of steady cantering to reach.

Life inside the yurt

Yurt living is radically social and communal. The lattice frame of willow poles (kerege) is wrapped in boiled sheep's wool felt that insulates against sub-zero mountain winds. In the centre sits a cast-iron stove fueled by dried dung bricks (tezek).

Hospitality follows ancient nomadic codes: the moment you duck through the low wooden doorway, a bowl of hot black tea and a wooden platter of fresh boorsok (fried dough puffs) are placed before you, accompanied by bowls of kaymak (clotted cream so thick a spoon stands upright in it). Then comes the kymys—fermented mare's milk. It is sour, effervescent, faintly smoky, and requires an acquired palate and a resilient digestive system.

• Thermal management: Night temperatures at 3,000m regularly drop to -2°C even in mid-July. Bring a four-season sleeping bag liner.
• Power and water: Yurt camps operate on single 12V solar batteries used exclusively for evening LED lighting. Carry two 20,000mAh battery banks.
• Cash reserves: Cash in Kyrgyz Som (KGS) is mandatory; cards and cellular signal do not exist once you enter the mountain passes.

The evening sky over the lake

At dusk, the herders round up hundreds of semi-feral horses along the lake's southern shoreline. The water reflects the grey limestone peaks of the Moldo-Too range like polished obsidian. In a region untouched by light pollution, the Milky Way arches across the sky with an intensity that illuminates the whitewashed yurts across the plain.

Questions about trekking or horse riding routes across the Tien Shan? Say hello.