Sharyn Canyon is one of the most beautiful places of Southern Kazakhstan. It is located on Sharyn river (195 kilometers east of Almaty).
GPS coordinates for Garmin/Navitel: N43.35056 E79.08173
You can use car or sightseeng bus in order to get here. I am not sure where you can buy a tour, but we saw couple buses near canyon.
Canyon is a part of National Park, so you have to pay for entering to its territory (something around 10 eur per car).
The road is good enough even for city cars. If you have SUV, you can ride across steppe or find the way down to canyon (be careful, there are some sharp stones in off-road areas).
Short footage of road.
Sharyn Canyon is one of the greatest natural monuments. It was created mostly by water erosion over millions of years (12 million to be precise). It stretches 154 kilometres along the Sharyn River. In parts, it attains a depth of 150 to 300 metres.
The most interesting part of the canyon is known as Valley of Castles (those GPS coordinates we mentioned above). Here you can find 2 kilometers long area with fantastic stone formations that appear to be ruins of walls and towers of ancient castles.
We tried to drop this stone down – it is not as easy as it seems 🙂
There is ancient ash-tree grove (Fraxinus sogdiana) – it is protected by government.
And here is video of getting down to canyon, accompanied by Kazakh folk music.
Flights to Almaty:
Hotel prices in Almaty:
