From the Snow,
Into Warm Water

You come from Karakol, and for a while there's nothing but the road pulling you into the valley. Then it narrows, whitens, quiets. At the end of the drive, the yurts sit in a field of snow, so small against the mountains that you almost miss them — until the sun rises behind them and everything is bathed in cold, clear light.

It's a landscape unlike anything you know — something entirely different. A rust-red canyon watches over the valley, and somewhere in the riverbed lies a giant slab of jade, buried and invisible all summer, visible only once winter comes. This other kind of winter landscape can be explored on foot or on touring skis, deeper and deeper into the snow-covered valley.