Hello! Winter has finally come to our mountains and everything is covered with snow. By the way, it came earlier than expected. And it means that for some period I will have to take a break from traveling - firstly, let the snow pile up properly and secondly - I need to buy some winter equipment. In the meantime, I will go on some city tours or go to the south of Uzbekistan on simple hikes.
Today I would like to tell you about my hike that took place at the beginning of November - I still managed to capture the warm days. On November 1, a large-scale charity half marathon was held in our country, in which a large number of people took part. Recently, it has become very popular for us to run marathons and half marathons - apparently imprisonment in quarantine has affected and in general the people have become more conscious, perhaps - a healthy lifestyle is becoming more and more popular. This is understandable – pandemic of COVID shows us that there is no hope for our health care system and we have to take care of ourselves :). By the way, news came out that the government will pay citizens for an active lifestyle. In particular, pay for at least 10,000 steps daily. I don't know if it's true - we'll wait and see.
Well, under the sauce of half-marathon popularity "Mysterious Uzbekistan" also decided to organize its own so called mountain half-marathon - and invited me to walk 21.5 km in the mountains. It would be difficult to run all this route, but to walk – no problemm! Of course, I immediately signed up for this trip.
As usual, we dispatched very early - at 5 am and only by dawn we arrived at Great Chimgan. I began to feel a certain charm in such early arrivals - I manage to photograph the sunrise in the mountains normally and not, as before - on the move from the minibus window.
Cloudy weather was promised. They even threatened with rain after lunch, but apparently the higher powers took pity and gave us a clear morning.
We hit the road. The hike was not difficult and not just along the path, but even along the well-worn track, so it was easy to walk.
We were gradually gaining altitude and the organizers' forecasts gradually began to be justified - from the side of Great Chimgan, clouds began to approach, covering the sky and hiding the sun.
In the meantime, we climbed a hill from where the peak of Kungurbuka was visible (1980m above sea level). It is difficult to say where this place name came from. The most common explanation is the following: "kungur-" means "dark-skinned", "brown", and "-buka" means "bull". Those, it turns out "Brown bull"
And while we were walking on the ridge of the "Brown Bull" Great Chimgan was completely covered with clouds.
We went down to the bizarre limestone deposits. I didn't even know that there are such stones in the Tashkent region ...
We took pictures with them and climbed further to Kungurbuka.
In general, Kungurbuka offers a wonderful view of the Charvak reservoir and the Chirchik valley. This is a very popular tourist destination. But, unfortunately, that day the panorama was hidden by clouds ...
We had lunch at the top of Kungurbuka and went down to a place called Khodjikent ("sacred rock" or "sacred stone" if literally translated).
By the way, right on the course and lost in the clouds, you can see the Diplomat peak, which I climbed a week ago.
We went downstairs. The group turned out to be very strong and enduring, so we skipped this half marathon quite quickly and we still had a lot of time. Unanimously, we decided to have a bite to eat at one of the roadside cafes and only then go home.
It was not very difficult, but an intense hike. On this autumn in the mountains is over and winter comes into its own. The founder and leader of "Mysterious Uzbekistan" Sharof said that we are now preparing for winter ascents. He has ambitious plans for the next year, in which there is a place for ascents of five- and six-thousanders. And if so, I have to train, train and train again. If only there will no lockdown again ...
!pinmapple 41.581242 lat 69.950882 long Mountain half marathon: Chimgan-Kungurbuka-Khodjikent, Tashkent region, Uzbekistan d3scr