Climbing in Central Asia

Our trip to Uzbekistan: A Cultural Success and a Climbing Failure

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We had long wanted to visit Uzbekistan, a country with a fascinating history and beautiful cities. We also really wanted to do some climbing in Uzbekistan, but for a number of reasons it never happened. The two main factors were the very hot weather (over 35°C) and the fact we got severe food poisoning only a few days into the trip. We felt totally wiped out and couldn’t really face the effort of trying to find any crags, let alone climb on them! At the moment there isn’t really any developed climbing in Uzbekistan at all. However, there are definitely plenty of mountains and canyons in certain parts of the country and it is surely possible for climbing to be developed.

Large tiled and detailed decoration on the front of a madrasa, a grand arced entrance with two minarets either side. The tiles, which are different blues and creams created different floral and decorative designs on every part of the front.
The Ulugh Beg Madrasa, dating back to 1420
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Rock Climbing and Hiking in Kazakhstan

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Kazakhstan is a vast country with an equally vast amount of things to see and do. Kazakhstan is actually the world’s largest landlocked country and the ninth largest overall. Despite all of this, Kazakhstan doesn’t receive many visitors, particularly from western tourists. We spent just under 3 weeks in Kazakhstan and had a great time. Of course, it would have been impossible to see much of the country in that time, so our recommendations in this article will be focused around the Almaty region. Kazakhstan’s other regions have a lot to offer as well, but a combination of the landscape and transport links make Almaty the obvious place to start.

Limestone lie cliff of Tamgaly-Tas it is sat upon a grassy bank
A panorama of Tamgaly-Tas
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