Ala-Archa National Park

Alpine national park 40 km from Bishkek — Bishkek's most popular weekend escape, with day-walks, glaciers and routes climbing to 4,000 m peaks.

Ala-Archa (‘Multicoloured Juniper’) is the closest mountain wilderness to Bishkek and the country’s most accessible national park. Created in 1976 to protect the upper drainage of the Ala-Archa River — a glacier-fed tributary that supplies most of the capital’s drinking water — the park covers 200 sq km of the northern slopes of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too range, climbing from 1,500 m at the entrance to 4,895 m at the summit of Semenov-Tian-Shansky Peak. A paved road from Bishkek (40 km / 1 hour by car) ends at the alpine campsite at 2,150 m, from which several day-walks fan out: the gentlest follows the river upstream through juniper forest to a waterfall (2 hours round trip), the most popular climbs to the Soviet-era Ratsek climbing hut at 3,300 m (5–7 hours round trip with 1,150 m of ascent), and the most ambitious ascends one of the dozen 4,000-metre peaks accessible from the upper Ak-Sai glacier. The park is open year-round; in winter ski-touring routes ascend the Ratsek valley and adjacent ridges. Wildlife includes ibex, roe deer, marmots, and (rarely) snow leopards. EcoNomad includes Ala-Archa as a half-day or full-day acclimatisation excursion at the start of most Kyrgyzstan tours.