Back in November we finally were admitted from the waitlist for the Feb. 1-12 Wilderness Travel trip to India https://www.wildernesstravel.com/trip/india-kumbh-mela-festival-guided-tour/
So naturally going halfway around the world Liz and I considered what we should add on. The obvious was the Golden Triangle of Delhi/Agra/Jaipur. As we were giving up some of prime ski season, I looked at ski options.
Matt Appleford’s Adventure Project https://www.theadventureproject.net/ has been going to Gulmarg in India for some time. I was not keen on that destination because reading his reports it seems rare that they get to ski the big lines due to avalanche exposure and minimal control work by the ski area. More recently he has had two trips to Uzbekistan, operating out of three lift served areas with some sidecountry touring. Central Asian snowpack is inherently dangerous, probably even more so than in Colorado, but the Uzbek terrain is mellower than Gulmarg so there are lots of options to go off piste while “keeping it under 30 degrees.” Matt is extremely safety conscious and includes at least the equivalent of an Avy 1 course in avalanche education on most of his tours.
Uzbekistan is also the cultural capital of “The Stans,” so we found a local tour company for 6 days in Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent covering the time between the Wilderness Travel and Adventure Project tours.
Matt has had an unlucky 2025 season for snow. He spent 11 days in Hokkaido with zero new snow and arrived in Uzbekistan to a 50% snowpack per guide Ilya with marginal coverage at low elevation.
So we have been at Amirsoy, the highest resort opened in 2019, for the time being.
There is a transport gondola from parking to the base of skiing at about 5,600 feet (Google Earth) with a second gondola up to 7,500 feet and a mid-station at 6,300. There is very limited snowmaking around the 5,600 foot base.
We took one warmup run on Tango to the mid-station, firm in the morning with a few thin spots. So we next started touring along the skier’s left ridgeline.
This was slow going as Liz and I were very rusty on AT gear.
Liz’ last AT was the Schwarztor in Zermatt in 2014, and since then I’ve had one uphill to El Collar in Las Lenas in 2015, two 15 minute skins in Val d’isere in 2018 and the two COVID tours at Mt. High and Mt. Waterman in April 2020. The only times I’ve toured on my DPS powder skis were Val d’Isere and Mt. High and both of those were in alpine boots with no walk mode. My 2021 Lange XT3’s have a walk mode but Liz is in alpine boots.
So tips from Matt and local guide Ilya were much appreciated. And then there was my slow climbing. Rule of thumb was that I would take close to double the time that Matt, Ilya and younger/more fit clients would on their own. So on this first run we stopped just short of this knoll with a tree, where there was the first fall line of sheltered settled powder.
A good feature of Central Asia’s Colorado-like snow is the low density, so if unaffected by wind or sun it stays powdery for a long time. High temps before we arrived were freezing or below but during our 3 days it warmed up to the low 40’s F. So each day it became progressively more challenging to find sheltered north facing aspects without tracks.
So this first sidecountry run Thursday was certainly high quality, Liz then Matt:
There’s a summer road that leads back into the inbounds. It has a few short step ups but is mostly a traverse, taking us 15-20 minutes.
The run down to the summer road was about 400 vertical so we put the skins back on for another lap. It was a bit steeper climb than the initial ascent along the ridgeline and I was annoyingly tired after the half hour it took me.
As I suspected, in my 70’s I’m probably limited to about an hour of uphill in snow per day.
As advertised Uzbekistan sidecountry skiing is quite non-competitive so Ilya and I put down two more tracks next to our first run.
The exit traverse from the summer road:
We returned to the mid-station, rode to the top and skied Papa to the 5,600 foot base and had a leisurely and tasty Uzbek lunch. It was 3:30 when we finished and so rode the transport gondola down. Liz on the way out between the restaurant and the transport gondola:
Vertical was a modest 6,200 but Liz and I were both worked from the uphill.
So naturally going halfway around the world Liz and I considered what we should add on. The obvious was the Golden Triangle of Delhi/Agra/Jaipur. As we were giving up some of prime ski season, I looked at ski options.
Matt Appleford’s Adventure Project https://www.theadventureproject.net/ has been going to Gulmarg in India for some time. I was not keen on that destination because reading his reports it seems rare that they get to ski the big lines due to avalanche exposure and minimal control work by the ski area. More recently he has had two trips to Uzbekistan, operating out of three lift served areas with some sidecountry touring. Central Asian snowpack is inherently dangerous, probably even more so than in Colorado, but the Uzbek terrain is mellower than Gulmarg so there are lots of options to go off piste while “keeping it under 30 degrees.” Matt is extremely safety conscious and includes at least the equivalent of an Avy 1 course in avalanche education on most of his tours.
Uzbekistan is also the cultural capital of “The Stans,” so we found a local tour company for 6 days in Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent covering the time between the Wilderness Travel and Adventure Project tours.
Matt has had an unlucky 2025 season for snow. He spent 11 days in Hokkaido with zero new snow and arrived in Uzbekistan to a 50% snowpack per guide Ilya with marginal coverage at low elevation.
So we have been at Amirsoy, the highest resort opened in 2019, for the time being.
There is a transport gondola from parking to the base of skiing at about 5,600 feet (Google Earth) with a second gondola up to 7,500 feet and a mid-station at 6,300. There is very limited snowmaking around the 5,600 foot base.
We took one warmup run on Tango to the mid-station, firm in the morning with a few thin spots. So we next started touring along the skier’s left ridgeline.
This was slow going as Liz and I were very rusty on AT gear.
Liz’ last AT was the Schwarztor in Zermatt in 2014, and since then I’ve had one uphill to El Collar in Las Lenas in 2015, two 15 minute skins in Val d’isere in 2018 and the two COVID tours at Mt. High and Mt. Waterman in April 2020. The only times I’ve toured on my DPS powder skis were Val d’Isere and Mt. High and both of those were in alpine boots with no walk mode. My 2021 Lange XT3’s have a walk mode but Liz is in alpine boots.
So tips from Matt and local guide Ilya were much appreciated. And then there was my slow climbing. Rule of thumb was that I would take close to double the time that Matt, Ilya and younger/more fit clients would on their own. So on this first run we stopped just short of this knoll with a tree, where there was the first fall line of sheltered settled powder.
A good feature of Central Asia’s Colorado-like snow is the low density, so if unaffected by wind or sun it stays powdery for a long time. High temps before we arrived were freezing or below but during our 3 days it warmed up to the low 40’s F. So each day it became progressively more challenging to find sheltered north facing aspects without tracks.
So this first sidecountry run Thursday was certainly high quality, Liz then Matt:
There’s a summer road that leads back into the inbounds. It has a few short step ups but is mostly a traverse, taking us 15-20 minutes.
The run down to the summer road was about 400 vertical so we put the skins back on for another lap. It was a bit steeper climb than the initial ascent along the ridgeline and I was annoyingly tired after the half hour it took me.
As I suspected, in my 70’s I’m probably limited to about an hour of uphill in snow per day.
As advertised Uzbekistan sidecountry skiing is quite non-competitive so Ilya and I put down two more tracks next to our first run.
The exit traverse from the summer road:
We returned to the mid-station, rode to the top and skied Papa to the 5,600 foot base and had a leisurely and tasty Uzbek lunch. It was 3:30 when we finished and so rode the transport gondola down. Liz on the way out between the restaurant and the transport gondola:
Vertical was a modest 6,200 but Liz and I were both worked from the uphill.
Last edited:
