The best one yet

Last Sunday we went on a hike way up in the mountains. We hiked up the valley in the middle of this picture and then curved around left, out of sight. There were five of us and Serik had a car, so instead of taking the bus to Medeo and hiking, we drove up past Chymbulak and started from there. It was beautiful!

Serik

Our path along the valley

I wonder how he lost his life??

Aida and I

Rebekah and Serik

All of us with Oleg. He is the boyfriend of Olga from a few weeks back ;)

I want to climb up every ravine and valley and path...! It was nearly overwhelming.

This is what happens when you tell us to say something other than 'cheese'

3100m altitude

On and on the path goes.. we stopped for lunch on the dam on the right in this picture. Someday I want to start out early and hike and hike and hike and see where it leads. If you go far enough (1 or 2 days) you'll hit Kyrgystan.

Picnic lunch. A word to the wise (two words, actually): don't sit across from me, and Pepsi can be dangerous at high altitudes :D
I accidentally blasted Yerlan with 1,5l of Pepsi when it got too pressurized...

Nothing like a good card game after a filling lunch in the mountains with the sun shining and good company :)

While my face still looked normal and it was warm enough to go barefoot.

Yerlan, Aida, Serik and Rebekah

Running down

I think it would be easily possible to stare at this place for hours on end

:) There was still enough snow to slide! We found one slope and tested it out. It was a bit soft in some spots, but good for the most part. It was deep too! Rebekah fell in to her waist and had to do some digging to get out again...

The local hiking attire. In summer they lose the pants too..

We had a wonderful hike with amazing scenery. The only problem :D appeared afterwards. We didn't have sunscreen and the wide expanses of snow everywhere just reflected the sun right in our faces. Monday morning we woke up with blisters all over our faces :D It's pretty painful, and our faces are rather disfigured by all the swelling and red color and yellow blisters... But we had to laugh, because last week we have been praying that God would humble us and take away our pride! He certainly answered our prayer. So be careful what you pray for, God most certainly answers prayers, and beyond your expectations!

Spring :)

Our beautiful sky, blue for once!

Gorky park at the end of the bus 118 route

green grass! It's so pretty

...and flowers...

we had fun climbing all over this old train until the guard saw us and started yelling :D

Girls hike

Yesterday we went on a very nice hike with just us girls: me, Aida and Rebekah
With all the fog, you wouldn't have known that we were in the mountains, but we still had fun. I love following the trails around and finding new places.

This is pretty much how it looked :D
On a clear day you wouldn't even notice these posts for the glory of the 4ooom peaks in the background. Yesterday this was all we could see.

Medeo

Trailblazing (courtesy of Rebekah)

It's one thing to find a new trail when it's sunny and you can see where you are.. it's another thing to do the same, not being able to see farther than 10m ahead of you.

The birch forest looked all mystical and pretty

This way...

It had rained the day before and the trails were rather muddy and slippery. At times the mist we were surrounded by crossed the line into rain, and then back into mist again. Very refreshing!

This is what happens when you miss the path...

traversing across the hillside (photo by Rebekah)

a chilly lunch break under a nice big fir tree. Between the three of us we had a feast!

The hills are starting to turn green!

A few months ago we slid down the slick ice on this road.

Aida

Springtime!

Someone said these are apricot flowers. They were really pretty for a few weeks. Now they're pretty much gone.. :/ But, there is a lilac tree blooming under my window.. (in April!!)

The view out my window :)

Fluorescent green spring trees!

The trees along Auezova street

This is our center

Foggy hike

the view from my window one pretty morning

The first leskenlehti flowers in the mountains :)

Aida

Robert

Rebekah fighting her way uphill.
In the shade the snow held us pretty well, but in places we would sink up to our thighs :D

David found a soft spot

Aida and Aida

The sun shining through the fog while we could still see something

Waldo might have been concealed but for his bag sticking out conspicuously...

This is about how steep the hill was. It was also muddy and slippery

up and up and up

How many more minutes??

The other Aida

Our picnic at our stopping point. Visibility was between 5-10m

Olga

Running down the hill :D

...or flopping down...

...or sliding down

Horsies on the Chimbulak road

some sort of horsie talk...?

They were kind of nippy

Half-way down the 830 stairs on the avalanche barrier