Hi,
I'm looking for a suggestion for a road approachable 4500+ meter peak in Kyrgyzstan from F to PD+ (at most AD-).
Explanation: I'm driving in a Toyota 4-Runner around the world (literally - except the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans) for the second time. First time was in 180 days 15 years ago, starting from New York City, going east. This time I'm doing it in portions - from Budapest to Mongolia this summer.
We're under time constraints to get to Mongolia (including my onward plane ticket and time limitations on Russian visa), but we'd like to find a straightforward "training peak" with glacier. Ideally, one that we could do in one day from the car (or one where we would have to hike in at most one day). 15 years ago, we found a no name peak on the W side of the south leg of road A364 (the one that heads south from Barskoon), about 20km north of the big bend.
We've got a fair amount of easy glacier experience in the high Alps and Cascades. We were planning to do Kazbek in Georgia, but we're thinking of trading it for something comparable in Kyrgyzstan.
Thanks,
Csaba Gabor from Budapest
Two miscellaneous questions for those experienced in road travel in Kyrgyzstan. I like this road, A364. It is a neat, wild, barren, rock road, the last 17 km. of which we did in 1st gear. Sadly, when we took this road as far as we could 15 years ago, we reached a second >>Russian<< border guard outpost (complete with bactrian) where they informed us that the continuation of the road was washed out, and we could not complete the tour with the remaining portion of A364. Sadly, google maps still shows a 30km gap. If you have concrete information on this road, I would love to hear about it.
Second, we have a single entry Kazakh visa (and we don't require a Kyrgyz visa). Does anyone know (from experience) if it is possible to obtain a transit visa in Kazakhstan while the current visa is still active, or do we have to commit to Kyrgyzstan (thus using up our Kazakh visa) before we can apply for the Kazakh transit visa (so that we can get in to Russia, so that we can get to Mongolia)? I asked the Kazakh consul here and he said while it is typically not a problem (for EU/USA citizens) to apply in Bishkek, taking around 3 days, it is also not guaranteed.
