Arabel Plateau

A 4,000-metre alpine plateau on the road from Barskoon valley toward the Kumtor gold mine — high steppe, glacial lakes and big skies.

The Arabel Plateau is a vast undulating high-altitude steppe at 3,800–4,200 metres in the Terskey Ala-Too range south of Issyk-Kul Lake — one of the most otherworldly landscapes in Kyrgyzstan. Reached by a 4×4 road climbing through the Barskoon valley with its waterfalls and Tibetan stone-carved boulders, the plateau opens out above the treeline as an apparently endless rolling grassland punctuated by small glacial lakes (most notably Lake Petrov, a turquoise-coloured glacier-fed pond at 3,940 m), the moraine of the Petrov Glacier, and herds of yaks belonging to the Kumtor mining-related infrastructure to the south. Beyond the plateau the road continues to the controversial Kumtor open-pit gold mine at 4,000 m. EcoNomad uses the Arabel Plateau as a high-altitude acclimatisation drive on multi-day Issyk-Kul itineraries — the views of the eastern Tian Shan from this elevation are among the most spectacular in the country.