As one of the highest lakes in the world, Kel-Suu Lake is secluded high up in the Tian Shan mountains. It is not so easy to get to, as you will need a high clearance car to handle the unpaved road and to cross several rivers. It is 150 km from the closest city Naryn to the Kok Kiya valley, then another 2 hours with horse to get to the lake. Along the scenic drive from Naryn, we barely saw any habitats at this time of the year. In the summer, more yurts are expected.
Kel Suu Lake is located in the border zone with China. Getting to Kel-Suu involves crossing a manned military checkpoint with gates to check your passports, which doesn’t make sense at all, as both Chinese citizens and Kyrgyz citizens also require a pre-arranged border permit. Getting the border permit is not difficult though, any tour agency in Naryn can do it up to 3 hours in advance.
Although the permit can be a hassle, I still consider Kel-Suu the highlight of the trip.
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Landscape along the horse-trekking from the valley to the lake.
Panorama view the Kel-Suu Lake. Because of the elevation (3500m+), the lake area is quite cold, snow is possible even in August!
If you happen to follow my previous blogs, I stayed with locals in the valley. They arranged the horse riding even though we arrived quite late the night before, the horse trekking to the lake was a great experience, it’s 2 hours to get to the lake and you’re surrounded with pure nature.
In winter the Kel-Suu lake drains out. Only a top layer of ice remains, when ice is melted, you can even drive to the other side of the lake.
In the summer when the snow is melted from the mountain, the water can go as high as the separation line suggests in the picture above.
It looks very slippery, but actually it wasn’t really.
The area is also great for trekking, after walking on the lake, we went for a short trekking around.
Flora near the lake.
This is how the neighbourhood looks like.
天山山脉的Kel Suu湖
之前的帖子提到过在新疆和吉尔吉斯斯坦边境，天山山脉之间，有一个世外桃源一样的湖叫做Kel Suu，路途遥远，从最近的城市Naryn过去也要跋山涉水需要6小时，从Naryn出发不远处有一个牧民小村庄，过了那个村庄以后就都是没有铺过的路了，途中还需要穿越两个小河，所以除非能租到四轮，自驾真是无力。不如就只能像我这样在Naryn拼车雇司机过去，吉尔吉斯斯坦本国的越野爱好者在夏天也会来这里，但是他们都是互相拼车，不太会用到租车服务，所以吉尔吉斯斯坦的旅游业不是很发达，我在Naryn也没有看到什么租车的地方。
就是在这里，住在当地的牧民家里，司机英文很不错，可以帮忙翻译，牧民第二天一早去找来马让我们骑，吉尔吉斯斯坦骑马很有意思，租一天马也很便宜，加上向导也就10来欧，跟以前在冰岛体验骑冰岛马相比，性价比高很多。而且这区域风景特别好，辽阔，没人居住，骑马去Kel Suu要两个小时左右，当然我是新手，所以是散步型的，如果骑快点应该一小时就可以到。
Kel Suu湖海拔3500多米，所以即使在春夏也是很冷，我们去的时候，湖边只留下一层薄冰，据说冬天还可以抄近路直接开车过河去另一侧。跟我之前搜的图片完全不一样，图片上看是宝石绿色的湖，而我看到的像雪山飞狐的感觉。有一张图片可以看到山上有明显的分割线，也就是说夏天的时候，当山上的雪融了以后，湖水可以涨到分割线那么高，夏天还可以游船，不过游船都是从Bishkek那里的旅行社和游船公司带来的，司机告诉我他们也在攒钱买船，希望他们顺利买到，因为我觉得还是多支持当地的独立旅游向导比较好。
走在湖边上的感觉很有意思，冰是那种比较粗糙的，所以并没有想象中滑。我并没有带登山鞋也还是可以走。之后我们又去山上徒步了一会，我特别喜欢吉尔吉斯的山，非常原始，没有开采过的天然美，不像很多过度开采的旅游景区，圈一个圈，太商业化了。
