Medeo to Shymbulak on Foot: the Small Almaty Gorge Walk

Of all the valleys above Almaty, the Small Almaty gorge is the busiest, the most branched – Butakovka, Gorelnik, Kimasar, Shymbulak and Mynzhylki all hang off it – and the only one whose classic walk starts, essentially, downtown. The Medeo-to-Shymbulak walk is the city’s rite of passage: bus 12 from the centre, 842 steps up a dam, and an hour or two of asphalt and forest to a mountain resort at 2,280 m. This is the full guide – including the history most walkers stride straight past and the quiet trail almost nobody takes.

Getting to the start

Bus 12 – board it at the Hotel Kazakhstan stop – runs all the way up the gorge to its terminus at the Medeo rink; taxis and your own car work the same road. Get off one stop early and you are at the Medeo cable-car base station (1,600 m), from which the gondola lifts straight to Shymbulak’s base (2,280 m) – the ride-up option. Eco-buses and taxis also run to the resort. But you are here to walk.

Who was Medeu, anyway?

The name is a person: Medeu Pusurmanov, a respected 19th-century Kazakh merchant and philanthropist who kept returning to this valley for its beauty and put his money into the local community. His name outlived him on the gorge, then the rink, and now half the tourist economy of Almaty.

Stage 1: the rink and the 842 steps

The Medeo rink (1,691 m, built 1972, a catalogue of world speed-skating records, open to the public November-March) sits under the wall of the Medeo dam – built in 1966 to shield Almaty from the mudflows that had menaced the city for decades, and tested successfully by a huge flow in 1973. Up its face runs the famous staircase: 842 steps, steep and unrelenting, where locals train and even race. Climbing it is the walk’s initiation fee; the view back down the gorge from the top is the receipt.

Stage 2: Gorelnik – thermal barrels and a heavy history

Further up the asphalt, a name every Soviet mountaineer knew: Gorelnik. A log cabin built by enthusiasts in 1932 grew into an all-Union tourist base – and during the Second World War it trained 1,500 instructors and over 12,000 mountain riflemen for the Red Army. Alpinist training continued here until 1953, tourism after, until the catastrophic 1973 mudflow destroyed the base. Today the Gorelnik visit centre stands on the site, and its special feature is the thermal spring: two barrels of flowing warm mineral water, a changing room beside them, open to walkers. A soak with a mountain view, halfway up the walk.

From here a marked side trail climbs to the Gorelnik waterfalls – 2-3 hours up, walkable year-round with decent boots – and the longer routes toward the Eagle’s Nest and beyond.

Stage 3: asphalt or the quiet trail

Most walkers follow the asphalt road from Gorelnik to Shymbulak – 60-100 unhurried minutes. Few know that on the opposite side of the valley runs a much more pleasant forest path, the one climbers historically used from the Gorelnik base. Same destination, softer ground, better company (none).

At the top: Shymbulak and beyond

Shymbulak works year-round: skiing November to May, and in summer horse rides, rope parks and paragliding. Early morning is the magic hour – mountain cold, empty terraces, and the summits of Abay, Oktyabrenok, Edelweiss and Asker looking down at you. From the resort the road continues into the Tuyuk-Su valley – where the Mynzhylki plateau, the alpine camp and the region’s climbing school terrain begin. The gorge keeps going as far up as your legs and plans do.

The walk in numbers

🎒 Other routes

The tour price includes your Medeo-Shymbulak gondola ticket (2026 tariff).

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