Day 441 - Mountainous Medeu

Bright and early this morning we made our way to catch the public bus to Medeu. In winter Medeu is a skiing/ice-skating/snowboarding paradise, and in summer it provides some great hiking. We decided to only undertake a day trip, as we hope to do some bigger hikes in a National Park next week sometime, and relied on the very small map in the LP. We had an uphill start in the completely wrong direction, but after asking for directions we were soon on our way - well in the way that we thought we should be going. We made our way up the Malaya Almatinka Valley where after an hour or so we met up with some other hikers. It was here we were informed that we were not on our way to the 2060m Kimissarov Pass like we though, but rather going up a valley to one side of it. Not to worry though as one of the other hikers spoke English and it we had found ourselves a free guide for the day.
Victor is a naturalist by hobby and was spending the day collecting wild herbs, fruit, and mushrooms - so we joined in the hunt and got some education in return. Victor was also great at pointing out where we were hiking and at what huge mountains we were staring at - our favourites were the aptly named Mt Panorama, Mt Hunchback, and Mt Furry.
After a few hours of hiking uphill and the frequent stops for mushroom and raspberry picking - we managed to gobble at least a punnet or so of raspberries fresh from the wild - we made it to 2600m where we had a deserved rest and fresh bread, tomato, cheese and cucumber for lunch. Adam made a run for a vantage point to look over the almost 2900m Butakovka Pass, where he was rewarded with snowy peaks biting at the sky above - Victor would later tell us that the highest mountain in this range is over 5000m. From our lunch spot we could also look over the sprawling Almaty city in the valley below - but being already after 2pm it was time to start making our way down. We followed a ridge line that descended steeply into a forest where we lucked upon pear and apple trees to climb and enjoy.Victor took us to a fresh water spring where we saved ourselves a few dollars by filling our bottles with the ice cold snow-fed water. While here a local herd of horses came along for their daily drink. On our way back to the bus stop Victor pointed out the path we should have taken this morning, and soon we were on the bus back to Almaty. We stopped in at the supermarket for some refreshments, popped in for yet another doner from across the road, and flopped our weary bodies into bed.

Adlibing it high over Almaty.