Kyrgyzstan
Jyrgalan
A former Soviet mining village reborn as a ski-touring frontier, accessed by horse in powder season.
Snow settles on abandoned mine tailings as a horse picks its way up the valley, its rider's skis strapped crosswise to the saddle. Jyrgalan in Kyrgyzstan's eastern Issyk-Kul province smells of woodsmoke and cold iron — a Soviet mining village where the ore ran out but the powder never did. The silence here is the kind that follows industry: total, expectant, and broken only by the creak of fresh snow underfoot.
Jyrgalan operated as a tin-mining settlement until the collapse of the Soviet Union left its tunnels empty and its population dwindling. Since 2015, local guides have mapped over 200 kilometres of backcountry ski-touring routes through the surrounding Terskey Alatau range — terrain that receives consistent dry powder from November through March. In summer, the same slopes open to mountain biking and trekking through valleys most Kyrgyz travellers have never visited. Guesthouses run by former mining families offer guide services, horse hire, and equipment rental, keeping the economy alive on a new kind of extraction. When heavy snowfall closes the valley road in winter, horses occasionally become the only way in.
Solo
Two hundred kilometres of unmarked backcountry terrain with a local guide and no one else on the mountain. Jyrgalan is where self-reliant skiers and trekkers find routes that haven't been named yet.
Friends
Split a guesthouse between a group, hire horses for the approach, and spend days earning turns through untracked powder. The post-ski lagman in a woodstove-warmed kitchen tastes better when you're all wrecked.
- The valley has over 200km of mapped ski-touring routes, most discovered and documented by local guides after 2015.
- In summer the same terrain offers mountain biking and trekking through a valley most Kyrgyz travellers have never visited.
- Local guesthouses run by former mining families provide guide services, horse hire, and equipment rental within the village.
- During heavy powder weeks in winter, the valley road sometimes becomes impassable — the occasional alternative is horses.
Steaming lagman with hand-pulled noodles in village guesthouses after a day on the slopes.
Fresh-baked bread and homemade jam breakfasts in family homestays.
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