Karavshin 2024
Big Wall Climbing
in Kyrgyzstan

An expedition report from the Karavshin Valley - one of the most remote and technically demanding big wall climbing areas in Central Asia.
By Konstantin Markevich

Last July (2024), I went to Karavshin with Mikhail Alekseev. The expedition started on July 4th in Almaty and lasted 17 days. I must say that this was a relatively short time, given that logistics for the area usually takes about 5 days. We planned to climb the famous "Perestroika Crack" route, as well as some shorter routes to warm up in the Ak-Su Gorge. On July 6, after 7 hours of trekking, we reached the Ak-Su Gorge and set up camp directly under the wall of Ortotyubek.

The next morning it started to rain, and then, in general, it rained all the time. Waterfalls flowed from the walls, and all the main peaks were covered with snow. During the entire expedition, we only had two full days without rain. And it was quite challenging to catch short windows of good weather for climbing. Looking ahead, I will say that we managed to climb 4 routes, despite all this. This was quite unexpected, as the weather in Karavshin is usually very pleasant. For example, a year ago, there were only 1-2 days of bad weather in the entire three weeks.

The first route that we climbed was to the "Central Pyramid", which is a lower section of the Ortotyubek peak, just 15 minutes away from the camp. In our guidebook, it was referred to as "La Carica dei Bimbi", but we called it "The Saw". On the third pitch, we moved to the left along the ledge, and then climbed along the corner, which seemed more logical than climbing strange slabs without protection, as was assumed on the original route. In the upper part we found couple of nice overhanging cracks and a fantastic juniper tree, that is several hundred years old. Quiet safe for rappelling.

Next day we climbed the central crack on "Petit Tour". The first three pitches are a corner and a slab with a crack overgrown with grass. The next 120 meters is a crack with a roof in the middle. In the lower part it's for fist or 2 hands (butterfly) jamming. In the upper part it becomes an offwidth for camalot №5-6. Overall, it's an excellent crack to climb. And the cherry on the cake is the final pitch - a closed chimney 20 meters high, formed between the main wall and the giant blocks.

It rained heavily for the next two days, and we took some time to rest. After that we climbed "Missing Mountain" route to Pamir Pyramid. It's a lower part of Slesov Peak standing a bit apart. First mainly it's a slab climbing then you move to a system of small corners and climb to the big ledge. The second part of the route is a giant corner, and the difficulty increases as you climb higher. The most challenging part of the route consists of a series of roofs and corners in the final pitches. We were very lucky with the weather that day, and the rain started just as we finished the last rappel and found ourselves on the walking slope.

During our breaks between climbing, we burned a fire, cooked pizza, and collected water from the tent into bottles. In short, we had a great time)
It cannot be said that the weather was completely bad, but it was clear that we would not have a normal weather window to climb the "Perestroika", in addition, there was snow on the Slesov Peak... Therefore, we decided to go to the neighboring gorge - Kara-Su, where we had other options for one-day climbs.

We packed up the camp, loaded everything onto horses and heded to Kara-Su. After 3 hours we were at the place. We met many old friends at the camp - climbers from Russia and Kazakhstan. The weather forecast for the following day was good, so we began preparing for the climb to the "Yellow Wall".

We started from the camp at 5:30 a.m., and the ascent took approximately 9 hours. We choose the Prokofiev route (5B according to the Russian classification) I climbed it once last year but I used a cam for progression on the crux. This time I send it. It is an overhanging offwidth crack around 7a grade. The rest part of the route is up to 6b and we both climbed it free without problems.

Surrounded by Big walls, Asan and Odessa peaks on the left, and Piramidalniy peak on the right.

At the top

After the Yellow Wall, we had a few more days left in the mountains. We didn't have time to climb anything serious, and some simple climbs weren't very interesting, so we decided to rest at camp and then head down.

The following year, in 2025, we returned to Karavshin to push further on more demanding big wall routes.

→ Karavshin 2025 expedition report