Ala-Kul Lake

The trail to Ala-Kul starts in the Karakol valley and climbs steadily south, following the river up through spruce forest and open meadow. It is a long first day: a river crossing, thinning air, and the grassy shelf of Sirota camp, where many trekkers stop for the night. Push on past it and the trees give out, the path steepens over rock and old snow, and the lake finally reveals itself at around 3,500m.

Ala-Kul rewards the effort at once: a long sheet of glacial turquoise cupped between bare ridges, its shoreline fringed with ice even in high summer, its colour sliding from milky jade to deep blue as the clouds move. There is no shelter up here beyond what you carry, and a night under canvas on its shore, with the water turning silver at dusk, is the heart of the trek.

The second morning begins with the hardest climb of all, up loose scree to the Ala-Kul pass at close to 3,900m, the lake shrinking to a blue coin below. From the top the route drops steeply down the far side towards the hot springs of Altyn-Arashan, where a battered Soviet UAZ jeep waits to jolt trekkers back down the track to Karakol. Two days, one pass, and a lake that stays with you.