Handpicked experience · Almaty
Almaty, Kazakhstan
An earthquake in 1911 dammed a gorge and drowned a spruce forest, and the water was cold enough that the trees are still down there with their needles on.
A lake with a date of birth and a cause
Trees that drowned standing up and never fell
Water cold enough to have preserved a forest
Two lakes of completely different character in one day
Hours of mountain country most visitors never cross
A long day from Almaty to two mountain lakes in the Kolsai valley: Kaindy, with its drowned spruce forest, and the first of the Kolsai lakes, travelling by shared road transport with photo stops along the way.
Kaindy did not exist before the twentieth century. In 1911 a very large earthquake struck this region — the same one that flattened much of Almaty — and a limestone landslide came down across a gorge here, blocking it completely.
Water backed up behind the debris and rose through a stand of Tian Shan spruce. The trees drowned where they stood, and they are still standing. What you see from the shore is a hundred bare trunks rising straight out of turquoise water, stripped of bark and bleached pale, with no branches left above the surface.
A drowned forest should have rotted away in a decade or two. This one did not, because the water is cold — around six degrees year-round, fed directly by mountain melt.
Cold water holds decay to a crawl. Below the surface the trees are not bare at all: divers report branches still attached and needles still on them, more than a century after the flood. That is the part that is hard to picture from the bank. Above the waterline the trunks are weathered stumps; a few metres down, the forest is more or less as it was on the day the landslide fell.
Kolsai is a chain of three lakes at increasing altitude, and a day trip from Almaty reaches the first.
The second is a hike of several kilometres up the valley from there, and the third sits close to the Kyrgyz border in a controlled zone that needs a permit arranged in advance. If you have come this far and want the second lake, that is a decision to make on the ground with your driver about timing — but a fourteen-hour day does not leave much room for it, and the first lake is not a consolation prize.
Departure is before half past five in the morning, and the return is well into the evening. Something in the region of eight hours of that is spent in a vehicle.
This is worth being clear about, because the lakes are genuinely remote and there is no faster way to reach them and return the same day. If a long road day is not something you enjoy, an overnight in the valley is the better shape for this trip — but done as a day, it works, and the drive itself is through country most visitors never see.
Carry your passport; the valley runs towards a national border and checks are possible.
The lakes sit at altitude, so temperatures are lower than in the city and the weather changes fast — a warm layer is worth having in any season. Paths at the shore are earth and root rather than made surfaces, and can be slick after rain. Bring food and water for the whole day: there is very little available once you leave the main road.
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An earthquake in 1911 brought down a limestone landslide across a gorge. Water backed up behind the debris and flooded the forest growing there.
Yes. Around a hundred bare trunks rise straight out of the water, stripped of bark and bleached pale by a century of exposure.
The water stays around six degrees all year, fed by mountain melt, and cold water slows decay to a crawl.
Far more tree than you would guess. Divers report branches still attached with needles still on them, over a century after the flood.
Tian Shan spruce, the same species that covers the slopes around the valley. The stand simply happened to be growing where the water rose.
The second is several kilometres of hiking above the first, and the third sits in a controlled border zone needing a permit arranged in advance.
Around fourteen hours, of which roughly eight are spent in a vehicle. The lakes are remote and there is no faster way to do it in a day.
Very little once you leave the main road, which is why a packed lunch matters more here than on a shorter outing.