Geography. High altitude salte lake located 330 kilometers (5 hours drive) south east of Almaty close to China border. Altitude of the lake is 2 000 meters above sea level. It is quite large lake – the length is 5 km, the width in some places is up to 2 kilometers.
Dead sea level of salt mineralization. The lake is shallow and its water is bittern salty, with a concentration that can become very high in certain seasons owing to high evaporation. The lakeshore is flat and marshy and the bottom of the lake is muddy. The surrounding fields are a local livestock grazing area following the melting of the snows.
Khan Tengri view. In good weather, the magnificent panorama of the mountains of the Central Tien Shan with its seven-thousanders Khan-Tengri (7010m) and Pobeda (7439m) peaks appears from the shores of the lake.
Komirshi gorge is another attraction of this area. It is located in the western tip of the Ketmen range, not far from the village of Saryzhaz. To get to the gorge, one has to pass the so-called Komirshi Gate, which is the entrance to the stunning world of white rocky bastions, overgrown with spruce. Rare fossils were found in these chalk canyon, such as the skeleton of the pliosaurus.
Route from Almaty on the map
