Kolsai & Kaindy Lakes

LakesAlmaty,Kazakhstan

A Kazakh lake where bleached spruce trunks still stand upright a century after a landslide drowned them, in water too cold to let them rot.

September·Peaking now

Sep

September is the sweet spot: dawn fog fills the valleys then burns off, the weather holds steady, crowds thin, and every trail and homestay is still open.

Year-round The sunken spruce forest of Kaindy and the three Kolsai lakes are here year-round; summer greens the slopes, and late September gilds the aspens and birches.

Lake Kaindy holds a forest that drowned and never fell over. In the northern Tian Shan of southeastern Kazakhstan, pale spruce trunks still stand upright in the water more than a century on. A landslide dammed a mountain river here and the rising water swallowed the trees where they grew. They died, but the cold did the rest. The lake is rarely warmer than a few degrees, so the bleached spars still break the turquoise surface, and below it the branches and needles remain intact in the frigid dark. Kaindy is barely 400 metres long and close to 30 metres deep. It is one of a pair of high-mountain sights set a few valleys apart. The other is the Kolsai Lakes, three alpine sheets of water strung up a single valley at 1,800, 2,250 and 2,700 metres, backed by dense spruce and known as the pearls of the northern Tian Shan. The lowest and largest Kolsai lake lies an easy walk from Saty village and gives the region its most photographed view: forested slopes doubled in a sheet of dark emerald water. A trail climbs on through the spruce to the middle and upper lakes. Strong walkers, and riders on hired horses, can carry on to a 3,278-metre pass on the Kyrgyz frontier, where Lake Issyk-Kul opens up far below. In summer the slopes turn vivid green; by late September the aspens and birches burn gold against the black-green spruce. The best hour is early morning, when the water lies mirror-flat until a breeze lifts and scatters the reflection. All of it sits inside Kolsai-Kaindy National Park, created in 2007 — no resorts and no lakeside town, just a mountain world you walk or ride into.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Kaindy lies at the far end of a rough mountain track — the sunken forest sits deep in the park, well beyond the last paved road, so the final approach is slow and rough.
Come from June to September for open trails, and time late September for the golden aspens — snow shuts the high Kolsai route and the Kaindy track for much of the year.
The lakes sit in a national park in a frontier zone by the Kyrgyz border — carry your passport, as border guards check documents this close to the frontier.
Skip up to the second Kolsai lake for the finest scene — the two-to-three-hour climb through spruce from the first lake trades the crowds below for quieter, deeper water.

Things to do

1
Witness Kaindy's submerged forest
Stand at the shore where bleached spruce trunks rise straight out of the turquoise water, drowned but still upright after more than a hundred years. Peer past the surface on a calm day and you can make out the branches, held whole in the cold below. Come before the wind wakes and the lake turns to glass, doubling every pale trunk — bare poles above, dark water beneath — in a flawless reflection.
2
Paddle on Kolsai's still waters
Get out onto the lowest Kolsai lake, the largest of the three and the easiest to reach from Saty village. From the water the spruce-covered slopes and the peaks behind them stand doubled in the dark green surface, and the reflection holds until the first breeze of the day breaks it up. Mornings are the calmest hours, so paddle early if you want the lake still and quiet.
3
Trek the tiered lakes toward the Kyrgyz border
Climb from the busy lower Kolsai lake up through spruce forest to the quieter middle and upper lakes, on foot or on a hired horse. Push high enough and the trail tops a pass on the Kyrgyz frontier, where the vast blue of Lake Issyk-Kul opens far below.

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Nearby

67 km