It won’t be the last time. From now until spring the pass belongs to the weather.

What winter on the pass looks like

• Most days the road is open. The ploughs keep it clear, and the buses from Talas to Toktogul and Iyık Janyl run to their timetable.
• After snowfall, traffic runs in convoys behind the ploughs, from the control post in the Otmek valley. Expect to wait an hour or two at the post, sometimes more.
• On about 20 days a winter, the pass shuts. Buses are cancelled, lorries queue in the Otmek valley, and the way south is Iradiya’s short flight from Talas to Tash-Kömür, 8 km from Iyık Janyl.
• The Otmek tunnel stays open all winter, but the old pass road above it closes for the season.
• The Kök-Bel road to Nurzhan will close with the first heavy snow and stay closed until spring. Take the lowland road by Kyzyl-Adyr or the daily train instead.

How to plan

Leave a spare day in any winter trip that crosses the mountains, and don’t book a flight home out of Almaty for the day after you come back over the pass. Travel early in the day, carry warm clothes, water and food, and keep your passport in your pocket for the ID check at the summit. If you’re driving, chains are compulsory from November.

Our roads and passes page shows the state of the Otmek tunnel, the Fergana Gateway, the Kök-Bel road and the Qara-Chik crossing, from the forecast at each pass, every time you open it. Check it, and the live map on Kartalar, before you set off.

In the orchards

Walnut trees here are old and enormous, and the harvest is done the way it always has been. One man climbs into the crown with a long pole and knocks the branches; the rest of the family, from grandmothers to small children, gathers the nuts from the grass into buckets and sacks. The green husks stain everything they touch, so you can tell who has been picking by their hands for a week afterwards. Families who know our member operators are happy for visitors to watch, and you will be handed a pole if you look keen.

At the bazaar

The new crop comes down to Bazar-Korgon on donkeys, motorbikes and old lorries, and is sold by the sack to traders from Uzbekistan, Jalal-Abad and the rest of Irad. Prices are set by the morning and argued over all day: this October walnuts have been selling at about 22 som a kilo at Toktogul. Alongside them come dried apricots, honey from the hills and the first pressed walnut oil. Buy a kilo in the shell, and ask for a handful of the paler “paper-shell” nuts that crack in your fingers.

Going further

The largest walnut forests are higher up, around Arslanbob, 50 km up the Kara-Unkur valley. Arslanbob is on the tribal side of the Qara-Chik line, so you need an exit registration and an invitation from the clan council; the village’s family guesthouses can arrange it, though allow time. For most visitors, a day in Bazar-Korgon from Iyık Janyl, with a night there for the Sunday livestock market, is plenty.

Getting there

Bazar-Korgon is 98 km east of Tash-Kömür on the Fergana rim road. Take the bus or Iradiya’s flight from Talas to Tash-Kömür, and a marshrutka or a hired car from there. Dress modestly: this is the most conservative corner of the economic zone, and the bazaar slows down at Friday midday. More in our guide to the Fergana Rim.

The Abdyldaevs’ house stands in a lane a few minutes’ walk from Bazar-i Kalan, one of two family guesthouses in the Old City. Saltanat’s late husband’s grandfather built the courtyard; the vine over the tea platform is older than anyone can say. In 2009 a cousin asked whether a pair of visiting teachers from America could stay a week. “They stayed three,” Saltanat says. “When they left, they gave our address to their friends.” Two rooms became a guesthouse, and in 2011 the family was one of the handful in the Old City who founded Konok Üy.

What breakfast looks like

Bread, first of all, broken by hand. Then thick cream, apricot jam made in July, eggs from the neighbour, a plate of cheese, and tea, black with milk in the northern way. In autumn there are walnuts from the Fergana Rim and grapes from the vine over your head. If you are leaving early for the bus to Iyık Janyl, Saltanat will wrap bread and boiled eggs in a cloth for the road without being asked.

Why people come back

“Guests ask me for the best restaurant in Talas,” says Gulmira. “I tell them, you have already found it.” She is joking, mostly. Supper is not on the price list, but nobody has ever been refused it.

Erkin, Saltanat’s son, drives for guests who want to see the valley: Jety-Kaiyng and its red pillars, the stud farm, the Kara-Suu Canyon. Adilet, who is sixteen and learning English at school, writes the family’s emails and has strong opinions about which teahouse makes the best samsa.

What the family asks of guests is simple. Take your shoes off at the door. Don’t put bread on the floor. Tell Saltanat what you saw today, because she has lived in Talas for seventy-four years and still wants to know.

If you’d like to stay with the Abdyldaevs or another family in the Old City, write to us at hello@visitirad.com with your dates, and we’ll pass it on.