Some time ago, Ambassador Jordy Norris and his partner Ola Krol, accompanied by a group of intrepid adventurers, traveled to Kyrgyzstan, that jewel of Central Asia nestled between the vast Tian Shan and Pamir mountain ranges. Here, Jordy recounts his discovery of this country, its enduring customs, and its immense mountainous potential. A funny and heartwarming adventure filled with horses, yurts, goat heads, and skis in timeless colors.
Words : Jordy Norris
Photos: Ola Krol, Simon Brizard, Jordy Norris
– €2 pack of cigarettes
– Boiled cabbage
– Whole head of goat
– Horse
A few of the menu items made available to you at an incredibly attractive low price throughout most of Kyrgyzstan’s capital of Bishkek. A city flourishing in vibrant shades of soviet-grey and architecturally complimented with supersized busts of all your favourite communist celebs. The evidence of a tumultuous period is present in the dominating structures of the city, but what becomes swiftly apparent is the Kyrgyz’s much prouder history written in their welcoming nature and warm smiles.
Located along the silk road, Kyrgyzstan has intersected the world’s superpowers for centuries. A population traced back to the 1st century BCE, the tribes of Kyrgyzstan have roamed this vast country by horseback through terrain ranging from polar tundra to 7400m peaks to sub-tropical valleys. Historically occupied by a surfeit of tribes each with their own domain, they were later bonded together against common enemies by their national hero Manas – his story traditionally told by bards in a poetic epic. This unity is captured on their flag where the dominant yellow sun on a red backdrop holds one sunray for each of the 40 tribes.
When one of our sponsor brought together a group of industry people for a little “Kyrgy ski vacay”, me and my partner Ola thought sure, why not, sounds lovely. We left it at that. We were living in Switzerland at the time and that placed us closer to Central Asia than Canada, so the boy/girl math checked out. I don’t think either of us knew how to spell Kyrgyzstan at the time and if we did, we certainly didn’t type that collective string of letters into ChatGPT to see what was up. Packing list: Black Crows, warm clothes, empty the ski paraphernalia drawer into a duffle…easy. We get to the airport and learn we’ve got a layover in Turkey on the way. Cool cool, 3hrs to Turkey, and we should basically be there, yeah? Wrong. After a quick highway robbery in the most expensive place one Earth, the Istanbul airport, we boarded flight two and found we had another 5hrs (aka the width of Canada) to go. Hmmm, bit further out there than we thought, eh?
Touchdown in Bishkek. Quick, get in the van…we’re already late. 9hrs of driving ahead of us. Hurry up. We can eat on the way. Wait, 9hrs? Well yeah, we’ve got 500km to go with a hefty amount of dirt roads ahead. Best we get moving.
We make a quick stop for a coffee enroute and step out of the van to a cavalry of horses and flag bearing men in their traditional wear rolling down main street. Likely on their way to a heated match of Kyrgyzstan’s wildly obscure national sport of Kok-Boru. Similar to the Afghan game of bouzkachi, two teams of riders compete against each other with the goal of successfully placing the carcass of a decapitated goat (or sheep) into a hole located in the opposing team’s camp. Competitors must try to block, tackle, or even wrestle the carcass away from the rider.
With that history lesson out of the way, we’re back off to Jyrgalan, the very literal end of the road. Tucked in the far Eastern corner of the country with a view into China in the South-East and Kazakhstan in the North. As we bounce along the deeply potholed, muddy streets for the last hour into town, it is made quickly apparent that the counsel of farm animals who run this place will not be moving quickly out of the streets to make way for their newest batch of highlighter coloured euro skiers. This includes the three sheep we saw frantically exiting the backdoor an early 2000’s Audi A4 at the first intersection. Probably late for dinner. Our human hosts on the other hand greeted us with huge smiles and welcomed us with handmade local slippers and cozy quarters in our modest rooms on the farm/motel/yurt compound.
We assimilate into the local ambience quickly with a trip to the Sauna courtesy of highly specific instructions from our local guide, Andrey.
1)A traditional wool sauna hat must be worn at all times. A snowball strategically placed under the thick wool works a treat.
2) The temperature gauge must reach a number equivalent to the one that killed the dinosaurs.
3) Leaving is not an option.
We followed up our sauna sesh with several replenishing glasses of Koumiss (fermented horse milk), and our first of many helpings of meat. They love meat.
Kyrgyzstan:1 – Mark the Vegan: 0.
Day 1 on the slopes. We wake up to a sunny beautiful, -5º @ 2300m, perfect day for ski touring. We throw our skins on outside the door of the kitchen and skin past the sauna, the yurt and the horse paddock into the sub-alpine hills of the Tian Shan Mountain range. The terrain reminds us of a blend of coastal British Columbia, mixed with some Colorado Rockies. High, intimidating jagged peaks with a blend of pillowy tree skiing down lower. A few areas of golden scree are visible on the south faces, but a decent base of 1.5m on the opposing aspects.
The terrain looks primo. Gentle shoulders and ridge lines for access, with steep featured terrain for the descent. Our first run brings us to the tree line just above town, looking down at a village of chimney-smoking farmhouses and backyard cattle pens. From this elevation we’re just beyond reach of the smell the dried burning horse manure, but the cilia in our nostrils tingle a bit reminding us it’s there. A touch of the sulphury burn-off from the adjacent coal mine tickles the tongue, and we quickly realize we are in the very center of the earth’s largest land mass, but at the same time so near to the end of the world.
Dropping in. First turns in Central Asia and vibes are high. Drop in and straight-line a bit to get the speed up to be able to really rail that first turn. It’s mid-February so the legs are feeling good and we’ve got our new Black Crows Corvus’ all dialed in. I lay into the first turn going for a surfy lay-back left and it’s a feeling I’ve never had before on snow. I sink, deep, but too quickly, the texture of the snow is new to me. It’s like skiing down a mountain of loosely packed sugar. You can drive to the bottom of the snowpack if you want, but the snow is pushing you back out at the same time, grabbing your edges and throwing them this way and that.
Ok, this is new, what the heck is up. Well, according to the locals most of their snow comes in early December and January, followed by periods of long frigid dry spells. The moisture is drawn from the snow by the adjacent alpine deserts, and you’re left with deep snowpacks of crystallized facets. Essentially just sugar all the way to the bottom. There was going to be a learning curve here, but this could also be real fun.
We soon learned that this snowpack would be a learning curve across the board. With no consolidation, the Avi risk was a bit of a new beast to manage. Not your typical slabs, but these point-release-sluff type slides that looked like a fresh little mountain-spring coming out of the slope then fanning out and growing in size as it grabbed more and more sugar and took it for a long ride. Steep faces were suddenly out, and the spook-meter was riding high.
It didn’t take us long to learn what terrain was in, and what was out. Partly for the sluffs we were kicking off all over the place, but also with this bottomless snow sending us waist deep and finding rocks at the base on a semi-regular basis. It brought out the timeless question of whether your skis are considered “tools or jewels” and how pitted do you really need to get on each turn. I firmly lay in the camp of every turn should be deeper than the last and busted skis are a later problem. This problem did develop into an increasingly pressing issue as the week went on, but when the snowpack gives you the choice to get thigh-deep at your leisure, there’s only so much our minuscule ski-bum brains can do to hold back.
Several ups and downs on very playful terrain, and the legs were ready for a bit of a break. AKA time to test out the very out-of-place looking Piston Bully snowcat parked at the edge of town. A beautiful juxtaposition of new and old in this town of population 1,000.
The guys who owned this hot little unit just happened to be fellow Canadians, checks out. We spent the better part of a day lapping up to 3300m and party-shredding through terrain that snowboarders dream about all summer (Skiers dream of it too, but it’s usually tilted 10º steeper. Beers on the side of the mountain and an après in an old school bus. Good livin’ if you ask me. To top off the day, Simon was honoured by our hosts that evening as our fearless group leader. The prize being his very own BBQ’d head of sheep. Teeth and brain included. In a true gesture of his altruistic nature, he selflessly cut out a prized piece of medium-rare brain for each of us to share. (It appears the aforementioned Audi guests seemed to have made their dinner reservation).
Deciding that the remaining snow was best left to the 1 or 2 other crews of skiers in town, we packed up the vans again and ventured West to promised new lands. Destination: Yurt. We roll up to a small village with a dozen horses and a few 25-going-on-60-year-old wranglers smoking hand rolled sawdust cigarettes in a mud pit out front of a small brick house. Giddy up! Once we got through the initial briefing consisting solely of them learning about which of our women were married and rebuking the ones who weren’t, we divvied up one horse for each of us, one for our bags, and one for our skis. I can quite easily say I’ve never felt so damned cool and nervous at the same time. These things were immense, beautiful beasts and they trekked us through waist deep powder for hours far into a valley that our Andrey told us had not been ski’d before.
Well great, lucky for you we’re here to ski it for you. Skins on, up we go, pretty dang deep skinning up here, snow feels even lighter than before. Only catch, again with the faceted snow we were actually sinking too deep. The base was a bit thinner here. Still a solid 120cm, but we were sinking that deep on each step, and realizing quickly the ski down would essentially be riding down a boulder field with a sheet over its head. It was. Although once again, it was also waist-deep snow so I still gotta give it some serious brownie points. Despite this, our ski bases would never emotionally recover. However, those who came next would know from the small chunks of green, pink and black polyethylene scattered about that this mountain had in fact been ski’d now.
Back at the Yurt, classic Kyrgy Yurt antics ensued. You know the ones. We built a kicker over the trail to the shitter, boiled some meat, significant vodka intake, lots of laughs with our hosts, negotiations for marrying our women, eau de socks, and another first ascent of another small adjacent peak by the Italians, Francesco and Vito – fueled by their sponsor, Sawdust Cigarettes.
With our cowboy era behind us, we ski’d out the winding horse trail back down and hit the vans again towards Karakol. Unfortunately, it seems some of the sheep brain found its way into my own brain and decided I should spend the next 48hrs shitting myself senseless. Thanks, sheepy. So, with great devotion I elegantly took on the crucial sacrificial role that one member of every atypical ski trip must own. No problem though because this meant I got to ride shotgun the whole way to Karakol while also getting an unanticipated yet exclusive look at the seasonal local flora of several roadside ditches along the way.
Several hours of driving under our belts, the crew did something that night while I hurled my brains out. I can’t remember what it was. It probably wasn’t very cool. Next morning the team geared up for a day at the Karakol Ski Base. Used as a training ground for soviet Olympic athletes at one point in time, this resort sitting at 3040m had an eclectic mix of retired chairlifts from a wide array of Alps ski resorts. With 1000m of vert and a €14 day pass, definitely worth a check. Several groomer laps were banged out, and the Euro members of the crew felt at peace with themselves to be back on sacred corduroy again. Meanwhile I worked on some abdominal exercises on the cool tile of the bathroom floor.
Yurt Flu: 1 – Jordy: 0
One final haul Westward back on the Issyk-Kul Lake highway and we were rolling into Bishkek for a last hoorah. Soviet era market goods, cow tongues by the dozen, souvenir sauna hats, and a stop at a stunning fine dining restaurant – Evropa. Filet Mignon – €9, yes please. The group ate like the meaty kings and queens they’d been training to become for the last 10 days. Even vegan Mark was able to finally load up on his dear lentils.
And for myself who still couldn’t stomach real food, I ordered the house special from the back page of the menu. A pack of Parliament cigarettes that the white-gloved server brought to me on an elegant gold trimmed China plate. With our flight out the next day and still riding the high from their first ascent, it only seemed fitting for Vito and Francesco to tell the townspeople of their great summit conquest by belting it out in ballad at one the countless vibrant karaoke bars lining the cold grey streets.
When we signed up for this trip, (with a one-word WhatsApp response – “sure”) we didn’t really know what to expect. Having ski’d the Caucus range in Russia a few years prior, my small North American brain figured it would be similar. But it really wasn’t. Traditionally, the Kyrgyz were nomadic herders, living in yurts and migrating with their livestock to remote pastures. This lifestyle shaped their close relationship with nature, their incredibly generous hospitality of others, and their resilience to survive the harshest of environments. They’ve maintained their independence despite centuries of Mongol, Russian, and Soviet influence and proudly share their profoundly rich and unique culture. Today, you’ll find a spectrum of views.
Most Kyrgyz showcase a strong sense of national identity and take pride in their independence, while others, especially those who benefited directly from Soviet-era stability, may feel that the post-Soviet years have brought more economic hardship and instability. What we often think of as oppression, some spoke of it as the golden years. We hope that skiing is able to help bring in a new golden era.
We left with memories of weathered smiles, firm handshakes with rough hands, warm wooly hugs, incomparable generosity, and a deep respect for their noble traditions. Until next time Kyrgyzstan…thanks to your beautiful people our meaty iron-rich blood has made our hearts grow one size bigger.
Shout out to Andrey Erokhin for showing us the goods. As the only IFMGA certified guide in Kyrgyzstan, he had the ability to show his passion for his backyard while also safely leading us into some epic terrain. He’s a badass. Hire him.
