5 days winter horse riding tour to Son Kul

Upon your arrival in Manas International airport in Bishkek, our guide team will meet you and drive to Kochkor village. As you make your way to the east out of the city, we will stop to visit the famous archaeological and architectural complex “Burana Tower“. Here you will learn about the history of the renaissance of Islamic culture during the Khara-Khanid Khanate – a powerful state of Turkic tribes in Central Asia on the X-XII centuries. Afterwards you will have a lunch at the local authentic café with a local famous food “kattama”. 

On the second half of the day, you will continue your trip to the village of Kochkor where you will stay in a local guesthouse. Get a good rest before your extreme winter horseback riding to Song-Kol Lake.

Enjoy a leisurely breakfast at the guesthouse and early transfer to Kyzart village where your 2 days horse-riding journey will start. After a brief demonstration of horse riding, you will set off on journey on horse towards to Kilemche pasture, following Chaar-Archa River. You will make a stop at the river for picnic. 

After the picnic and rest, we will continue our tour to the Kilemche Valley, where we will stay overnight with a local shepherd’s family, who will welcome us cordially with a cup of tea. Today we need to have a good rest because tomorrow we will have a difficult climb to the pass.

After breakfast, we will slowly climb to Tuz-Ashuu pass (3400 m). Covered with snow, the pass is difficult to reach, but after reaching the top, you will have a panoramic view of the whole lake and the valley. After a while enjoying the view and giving a break for the horses, you will slowly descent to Chon-Tuz-Ashuu Valley.

Upon your arrival at the yurt by the Son Kul lake, you will have a hot lunch. After you will be warm up with the hot lunch, until the dinner you can spend the remainder of the day exploring mountains. Get ready to spend your first night at yurt!

Wake up at yurt and have your breakfast before you leave Song-Kol Lake. Today we will start by riding back to the village of Kyzart. Horseback riding back down to the village will be easier and faster because we will not need to climb the pass as on the first day and the horses want to get to the village as soon as possible after a cold night on the lake. When we reach the pass, we will say goodbye to the lake and begin to descend down into the valley.

Then we will let the horses head towards the village and enjoy a smooth ride to the destination where a hot lunch will be waiting for us. After lunch, we have a transfer to the village of Kyzyl-Oi. It will be amazing to look out of the car window at the pass from where we just descended earlier. By the evening, we will arrive in Kyzyl-Oi village and rest in a guesthouse.

Today we will drive back to Bishkek through a different road than we used during arrival. After breakfast, make your way back across beautiful and fascinating Too-Ashuu pass (3360 m). It is a pass from the Suusamur valley to Chui Valley, with serpentine roads on both sides of it and the views on the pass are truly an amazing. 

After a couple of minutes stop to enjoy the view from the pass, you will drive down and go further through a gorge to Bishkek. Finally, we are in Bishkek and go to have a lunch. On the second half of the day, it is time to explore the capital: visit Osh bazaar for souvenir shopping and Main Square Ala-Too of the capital city.