Pros
- The Karkara cat skiing offers the fun of snowcat skiing with the obvious benefit of being in a culturally interesting country.
- The week long tour that included 2 days of cat skiing was inexpensive and the whole week cost about 1/3 of a Japan cat skiing or Canada cat skiing trip for 3 days.
- Whilst many parts of Kazakhstan are desolate and dry, this mountainous area gets good amounts of snow and some lake effect snow from a big alpine lake in Kyrgyzstan that doesn’t freeze.

Pro or Con Depending On Your Perspective
- It’s a wild adventure and delightfully raw. This is not British Columbia cat skiing with a fancy lodge and there’s no pampering.
- Along a similar vein, the snowcat cabin is nothing like you’d find in BC Canada. It’s rudimentary, yet it does the trick in doing all the uphill work for you.
- Whilst the guides speak enough English to communicate the basics, don’t expect a safety briefing or information about what they’re doing for risk mitigation. Once again, you’re not in BC.
- The cat skiing is in a delightfully remote spot, so you’ll spend plenty of time in the van to get there, but you don’t have to do the driving, just sit back and soak it all in.

We’ve provided detailed ratings of the Karkara cat skiing against many other snowcat skiing operations around the world. It’s a primitive low-key outfit so it doesn’t stack up rating-wise against the gold standard of cat skiing which is in BC Canada with regards to safety standards, snowcats, and terrain diversity and snow. That doesn’t mean that it’s not amazing fun or provide great cultural aspects.

OUR EXPERIENCE
What a fabulous adventure we had. The start of the Ski Adventure Kazakhstan trip had been fun where we stayed in the city of Almaty, yet it was nice to be in out in regional Kazakhstan where the culture felt more obvious and the experiences quite different to skiing back home. This is what I’d come to Kazakhstan for! As one small example, the cat skiing component of the trip commenced at a military post, and us ladies needed to visit the bathroom and were permitted to go into the barracks. The soldiers were keen to practise their English and show us their basic ski touring equipment. Just wish I could have tried out the antiquated skis! Also staying at the mountain lodge provided a unique experience and it felt like I’d found the “real” Kazakhstan, with the home cooked traditional fare and me attempting to order drinks at the bar using some gesture (I was ordering vodka so the communication wasn’t too difficult!).

TERRAIN & SNOW
The terrain was quite varied, yet naturally the terrain selected by the guides attempted to cater to varying ability levels within the group. The minimum ability level for the tour was strong intermediate and we had a few in our group that had very limited off-piste experience.

The terrain on the first day was mostly open slopes with sparse vegetation as well as some glades (ie widely spaced trees) on modest gradients. It was perfect for our group, with enough challenge for the experienced skiers and riders, and plenty of room to manoeuvre for others. The snow had a thin crust in some spots whilst on the shaded aspects the snow was lovely, except that it was marred in many spots by snowmobile tracks that had set up hard (they’d had a snowmobile group up in previous days that had trashed some slopes).

It was really windy overnight and the guides had more trouble on the second day finding ideal runs that weren’t scoured by the wind or covered in wind crust. We repeated a lame run a few times right next to the cat track that was so mellow that the unconfident snowboarders kept getting bogged. Initially the guides didn’t seem to be able to find the protected aspects. We did a couple of runs where a couple of intermediate skiers were struggling with the crust and the guides didn’t seem to grasp this possibly because they were all snowboarders. Admittedly we would have been a challenging group to guide considering the varied abilities, and after some prompting, the guides agreed that we should do shorter steeper runs in the lower parts that weren’t wind affected. This included some lovely steep pitches in amongst the trees where the snow had been protected from the wind, and the combination of terrain and snow was divine.

SNOWCAT
The snowcat seemed to have adequate power for getting us up the hill, but unlike most cat skiing outfits, they didn’t pre-make cat roads which made the ride a little inefficient. In the absence of cat roads, it also meant that there was no easy spot to get the equipment on without standing in deep snow, and those with finicky ski bindings (ie me!) had to muck around with each transition.

The snowcat cabin was primitive and a far cry from the luxe cabins you find in some other parts of the world. It was a box with a wrap-around bench for seating, so when going up the hill those sitting in backwards or sideways facing seats had to desperately try to find some way to not slide off the seat, which in the absence of seat belts or handles was a challenge. To get in and out of the cabin, there was a ladder with one hand hold, and they often parked on a slope and without a packed down track, those with short legs were having some difficulty getting in and out. Other absent features included a lack of storage features or hooks, no insulation, and there was no heating. Nonetheless the snowcat served its purpose and it was better than a couple of snowcats I’ve been on where you stand on the back, or even one where we sat in the front bucket!

GUIDING & SAFETY
As we all had different first languages, it’s not surprising that any communication about specific safety aspects was kept to a minimum. Other than the guides needing some encouragement to alter their terrain choices on the 2nd day to minimise the wind crust, the two snowcat guides generally seemed very competent. Their skills came to the fore with an injury where they were deftly able to deal with the issue and get the skier down the slope to a waiting snowmobile.

In addition to the 2 guides that knew the terrain well, we also had our tour guide to provide additional support as required. The guides were all snowboarders, so on mellow terrain they needed skiers to cut a track for them to gain momentum at times, and skiers often needed to pick up bogged snowboarders. Lead and tail guiding on a snowboard (without poles) in deep snow on mellow terrain can be challenging.

LODGING
The lodging lined up with our expectations, and we knew that we wouldn’t be completely roughing it, but it wouldn’t be deluxe either.

Bathing by using the sauna and then doing a snow angel seemed like a quintessential Central Asian ritual! The restrooms did the trick, although they were a long walk from our cabins and some sort of portaloo might have been handy for the evenings.

The rooms had adequate beds, power, heating and a little connectivity, so it definitely wasn’t off-grid or “roughing it”.

The communal area was a nice après ski spot to celebrate a great day out in the mountains. In addition to fruit and nut snacks, there were multiple dishes for dinner so there was plenty of options for fussytarians. The vodka flowed and we created our own fun with a little dancing after dinner.

Overall, what a fantastic experience! If you go with the attitude of it being an adventure minus too many extra trimmings, then you should have an awesome time.
See our video here