Best hike this trip...

And it was bit of a tough one! Or maybe we're just getting older!

13 kms (8 miles) and 687 meters (2,200') of elevation gain. Spectacular views of the Jryrgalan valley.

We set off from the guest house at just after 9:00am, knowing that we still had a couple of hours of driving to do later in the day. Along with Bjorn and Freya, we were joined by a single girl from Japan. We never wrote down her name, and neither of us can remember it!

The sleepy coal mining village of Jyrgalan.

But it is not going to be a sleepy village much longer as a major four lane highway is invading.

Coal miner statue.

As I explained yesterday, they are building a billion dollar ski resort area here.

Zoomed in on the installation of some of the cable car lifts.

Freya, and Bjorn.

Scenery along the way.

Ruth and the Japanese girl.

So many beautiful wildflowers.

We came across this group of horses.

Some kind of giant mushroom thing.

We made it to Turnaluu Lake.

A high alpine lake, located in the Tien Shan mountains at 2,670 meters (8,760') altitude.

But we had higher to climb yet!

A herd of horses in the distance.

More wildflowers.

We sat and took a break here.

Very nice!

Looking back the other way.

But we still had another 100 meters of altitude to climb!

Ruth and the Japanese girl.

The Japanese girl was only 42, but she seemed to be struggling. I guess that makes Ruth and I feel pretty good! Not sure that she was totally happy with having asked to join us, but we did make an effort to keep her company. 

Wow.

This part was tough. It was steeper than it looks in the photo, plus it was quite windy.

Going down the other side.

More wildflowers.

Horses everwhere.

This is our kind of scenery.

Back down at the guest house, we had a quick late lunch and got on the road. 

Once we passed the construction area, we were on this quiet unpaved road.

Then we were spoiled by this freshly paved road with very little traffic.

Looks like a volcano in the distance, but it's just a cloud.

We were trying to get to a campsite, and came across this bridge made out of a shipping container.

Neither one of us would fit through it comfortably!

But we ended up at another great free camping spot.

GPS 42.832964, 77.504797

Kyrgyzstan is definitely the easiest country that we have ever found for wild camping/boondocking. So many great locations, and nobody seems to care where you park. I doubt that will last with the influx of tourism, of which we were part of. But we're glad we got to do it now.

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Blink Outdoor 3 Camera Security System.

And in Canada...

Prime Day is June 23-26.