International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) 2024 Uzbekistan Trip Report

[Mattadvproject]

Uzbekistan

No rest for the wicked..... after only 2 full days back at home, tomorrow I am jetting off to Uzbekistan for my next trip. This will be my second time to Uzbekistan; regular readers will remember my last trip from there back in 2022 and what an amazing time that was, probably one of the best trips I have been on (apart from all the challenges with COVID and subsequent travel restrictions). This time, there are no restrictions and I have a crew of 6 coming with me (4 skiers in one group and 2 snowboarders in another). We have 2 skiers from Colorado, 1 from Chicago and 1 from Australia and then a boarder from Australia and 1 from California. I have 2 local guide supporting us.

Whilst I'm still pretty tired from the Japan trip, I'm excited for this one as Uzbekistan has been getting some really good snowfalls recently (after a VERY slow start) and there is a big storm forecast for our arrival. Japan didn't deliver the quality powder it normally does, so hopefully this trip will. A big Polish group (guided by some Polish ski guide friends of mine) have now left so hopefully, it will be quiet again. Last time we had the slopes and powder to ourselves, hopefully it will be the same again this time. Fingers crossed!

I'm leaving from Denver tomorrow afternoon, with a flight to Frankfurt and then onto Istanbul. I have a decent layover in Istanbul and then a separate flight to Tashkent. I will arrive at 8:05am local time, on the 16th Feb. I'll have a full day and night to recover before we hit the road and up to the mountains on the 17th. As always, I'll be posting as live as possible, if the internet connection allows..... Wish us luck!

- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Feb 14 - 16 - Travel Days

I safely made it to Tashkent! Here's what happened. On the morning of the 14th, we left Granby to head to the airport in Denver. I was with my two friends and guests, Krysty (Granby) and Russ (Tabernash). It was an easy drive, with only a little bit of snow in the ground when we went over Berthoud Pass (such a different experience to leaving for the Japan trip!). Thanks for driving Russ! We had plenty of time to spare when we got to DIA so enjoyed some food and drink in the United lounge in terminal A. Again, big props to United for this vastly improved new lounge.

The first flight when smoothly, about 9 hours to get to Frankfurt. Then we had about 2 hours to kill before getting on the next flight to Istanbul. That only took about 3 hours, so again, pretty easy. Our bags arrived with us, so no dramas there. We were all on separate tickets (one for DEN - FRT - IST and another separate one for IST to TSK). It would have cost about $9k in economy to book the flight altogether through United, so booking the two legs separately bought the price down greatly, but meant that we had to pick up bags in Istanbul and then transfer through immigration, bag pickup, customs and then re-check in for the next flight.

That all takes a lot of extra time, but as long as you build that into the itinerary, then it's no big drama, just a little inconvenient. Our original flight to Tashkent got cancelled and Turkish booked us all on flight to Tashkent the next day, but that would have meant staying in Istanbul 1 night and then arriving in Tashkent on the morning of the 17th around 4am (which was our travel day up to Chimgan), so that wouldn't have worked.

We re-booked flights from Istanbul that departed around 1:30am on the 16th, arriving Tashkent around 8:05am. It's about a 4 hour flight and then a 2 hour time change, so by the time we got to Tashkent, we were all pretty tired. We'd had about a 7 hour layover in Istanbul which went fine. When we arrived in Tashkent it was quite cold. Now it's snowing, which bodes well for snow in the mountains.

We are staying at the Lotte Tashkent and it's a really nice hotel. Our driver picked us up in a swanky Mercedes Sprinter van with disco lights and leather trip. He didn't crash either on the way to the hotel, so that's a great start. I caught up on some sleep (the combined effects of the jetlag from the Japan trip return and now this trip have made me really tired right now). Tomorrow we leave for the mountains! I'm looking forward to it....


Cold and gloomy for our arrival in Tashkent. Snow was in the forecast for that evening in the city!



$200 USD gave us about 2.4 million Uzbek Som. We are millionaires!



Krysty and Russ enjoying our decked out Sprinter van. Hopefully it has karaoke for our 2-hour drive to the mountains tomorrow! Nothing like captive karaoke...



Amd we feel the same way about you!


- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

17th Feb - beginning our journey to the mountains

On the way, we passed some historical landmarks, including the infamous Hotel Uzbekistan, where a lot of dignitaries would stay in Soviet times and the KGB would bug all the rooms! The drive to the mountains went pretty fast. In only 1.5 hours we were there. Our hotel has amazing mountain views and is brand new, well appointed with many English speaking staff. I think we'll do alright here!

We had time to do some basic avalanche safety training in preparation for skiing on the 18th. It's been snowing, looking forward to hitting the slopes soon.






Hotel Uzbekistan, not sure if the rooms are still bugged or not!



Heading into the Chatkal Mountains in the Western Tian Shan range.



This new hotel has a massive Soviet airplane parked in it's front yard! Will have to get a better shot....



There's a couple of little runs with rope tows and poma lifts that people ski, not including the chairlift area where we will go.



Beacon training



Awesome view from our hotel restaurant!



Lovely lamb dish for $7 at our hotel restaurant


- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Feb 18th - First day on snow and getting mobbed!

First day hitting the slopes and talk about the quintessential Uzbekistan experience! We headed to a small ski area with just one rickety old double chair. As soon as we got out of our vehicles in the carpark, were mobbed by enthusiastic tourists who wanted to take their photos with us! This went on for some time, it was quite the scene and an amazing introduction to the adventure that awaits in Uzbekistan!

After the initial feeding frenzy, we made our way up to the chairlift, with a lot of hellos and well wishes on the way. It was very heartwarming. It's about $1.60 per chairlift ride and we paid at the end. Our local guide, Ilya, made sure we took a side entrance so we could go straight on the chairlift each time without queuing. It's a little sketchy getting on the chair. You walk on carrying skis and backpacks and you have to do a good job keeping your feet up on the wooden decking as the chair takes off.

Then a 10-minute ride to the top saying hello to all the tourists coming down the other way. It the top is a relatively small, flat area with a viewing platform. We had about 30 people watching us and cheering us on as we put our skis on for the first ride down. It was quite the scene. We skied fresh snow with plenty of untouched snow with only 1 other snowboarder to compete with. It snowed all day and got deeper with each run. We were getting faceshots by the end. We did 7 runs for about $12!

We finished the day by meeting local legend and one of the founding ski guides, Grigoriy Trebisovskiy at his mountain home and he delighted us with tales of his achievements. He's an amazing man! That was a great way of finishing a memorable first ski day!



Our day started with an impromptu photo shoot with these very friendly tourists. This happened several times throughout the day!



Russ making friends!



Our crew, from left to right, Kurt (Australia), Ilya (local guide), Krysty (CO), Rob (Chicago), Andrew (Australia), plus myself and Russ (CO).



For about 20 cents, you can jump on top of this majestic beast for a photo op at the top of the chair. As well as the sword and shield, there is a chest plate and helmet to wear. Next time, I think I have to put on all of the kit myself.



Every time we dropped in from the top we had an enthusiastic crew behind, cheering us on!



The snow was starting to accumulate nicely, as the day progressed. Several faceshots were had!



Kurt



Rob



Enjoying some lunch with Shashlik (lamb kebabs) my particular favorite, plus salad, soup and tea. This cost us a few dollars each.



Meeting local legend, Grigoriy Trebisovskiy, one of the first Uzbek mountain guides and father of our local guide Kseniya, who is unfortunately suffering from kidney stones and can't ski with us currently. Hopefully she will be back with us soon, but her friend Ilya has been doing an amazing job with us.


- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Feb 19th - Battling the clouds

For our second day of skiing, we hit the road and drove to another resort. This one is more modern and has a gondola and a chairlift. Lift tickets were $23 for a full day ticket. The weather was tough, with clouds reducing the visibility to low levels, so we had to pick our spots. When we could see, the skiing was great with all the fresh snow.
The run of the day came later in the day, after noon, when the skies parted and the sun came out briefly. We hiked out along a ridge for about 150m. We could finally see the bigger mountains behind our ridge and the partial view was stunning.

We made it to our drop-in point and skied one at a time, reconvening a lot further down the ridge. It was a great run and the powder was great. By the time we all made it down to the meeting point the clouds rolled back in again and visibility was really tough, so traversing back to the resort was hard going but we made it back safely.
We had a late lunch with plenty of Uzbek food and a couple of beers each. A whole table load of food and drink came to $13 per person. A great way to finish the day off with a type 2 adventure.....



As we made our way up the gondola, the clouds finally started to lift and we got our first peak of the higher terrain



A 15-minute bootpack through knee-deep snow was definitely worth it



The mountains behind the resort are stunning.



Ilya and Kurt, bootpacking up the ridge.



Our drop-in point!



My skis were enjoying the view.



A nice, long, untouched ridgeline. This is why you come to Uzbekistan.



More Shashlik - lamb kebabs. These were better than the previous day.




- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Feb 21st - Finding the goods!

After missing a day due to sickness, today was an amazing day to get back on the horse and lead the group to some of the classic Uzbek lines that make traveling halfway around the world worthwhile. We definitely got the goods today and with the sun out, we skied some dream lines.

We worked hard, doing a long side-step and traverse out to a zone where we were the only people skiing. We had it all to ourselves. We had two long laps of untouched, boot-top deep, Tien Shan goodness! The backdrop was stunning and the smiles were just as impressive. Thank you Uzbekistan, you truly are incredible.....





- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Feb 22nd - Going big!

Today we really went for it! With the potential for fine weather decreasing greatly, we decided to make the most of the sunny weather to hit a big line.
This was a 4 hour 15 minute skin to take us to a massive ridgeline that we can see from our hotel. I skied this line back in 2022 and it was amazing then, so I was excited to get some of our group to try it.

We had our taxi driver drop us off by the local fire station and up we went. The skin track started off steeply up and open face before mellowing somewhat through an open meadow. We hit another short but quite steep face where I shoveled out the corners to make easy step turns instead of steep kick turns. After crossing some more open faces, we hit a ridgeline, which we would be on for a couple of hours. It was quite arduous, but we chipped away, slowly getting closer to our objective. An Eagle flew around us overhead, surely that would be a good omen?

After a lot of work, we came to drop in point for our ridgeline. This run below with a perfect fall line. After safely navigating a large pillow of wind slab I was able to access the main ridgeline and enjoy boot top deep, light powder. I was having so much fun that I skied a very long first section. The turns were amazing in the un touched, steep powder. I stopped to set up my DSLR camera to get some action shots. Everyone was pretty stoked with the first pitch. Then we got to ski 2 more long sections and they were a lot of fun.

We finished at the bottom of the ski area and a short walk to a restaurant for lamb kebabs and a beer. It had been a hugely rewarding day and the best day of skiing for the trip!



Looking at our line from our hotel, it's hard to make out, but there is a ridge that runs right down the middle of this open face and has a great fall-line and is very long.



Kurt, climbing up the skin track, early in the tour.



Starting to gain some altitude now. Krysty, working hard!







After 4 hours 15 minutes we reach our drop in point. There's definitely some wind slab on the exposed ridge.



A french guy was out skinning by himself, happened to take this shot of us whilst we were transitioning to start skiing again. Our entrance to the line was to the left of the cornice where it rolled over nicely and there was no drop, well away from the big cornice to the right. There was no wind slab on the ridge we skied and the snow was incredible!



My first stopping point with some of my tracks. I went a little further than expected as I was enjoying the skiing so much and it was a little further down to a point I felt comfortable with for re-grouping. The group dropped in one person at a time and I shot some stills with my DSLR camera (will post later).



View of our tracks from about 4/5 of the way down. It was a great feeling for the guys to have earned their turns on such an amazing line! For some, they said it was the best run of their life! I was pretty stoked to hear that.....



The French guy also made this little summary of our line. Merci!



The lamb kebabs and beer never tasted so good!

- Matt

 

[Drahtguy Kevin]

Great day! My favorite line ever…so far. I heard the usual kabob stand wasn’t open. Hopefully you can make it there another day.

 

[Mattadvproject]

Great day! My favorite line ever…so far. I heard the usual kabob stand wasn’t open. Hopefully you can make it there another day.

Yes, it's a market as well so I think that part was open, but there was no one outside tending to the little charcoal BBQ setup, so sadly we couldn't sit out and look back at our tracks whilst gorging on meat sticks and adult beverages! Oh well, we did eat at a place just down the road from there and then some of the guys jumped on horses to go for a quick ride!

 

[Mattadvproject]

24th Feb - Last day of skiing

It was snowing hard and we had about a foot of new snow. Snow quality was great with some nice untouched lines to be had. There were 3 Russian skiers plus one local rider and then our group. As is customary for the weekend, we were given plenty of support from the tourists who cheered us on from the top of the chairlift.

I did three runs at about $1.60 per lift ride before heading back to the hotel with most of the group. Rob stayed out for a few more to finish the trip strong. This was a fitting way to shut down the skiing portion of the trip. On the 25th we headed for our cultural day in Tashkent and then on the 26th, took the high-speed train to Samarkand for the day. I have a lot more to come!



- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

25th Feb - Leaving the mountains and exploring Tashkent

Oh jetlag..... time to post about our cultural activities at the end of the trip. Whilst the skiing was amazing, the opportunities for cultural immersion are just as strong. This year, I thought I'd go into a lot more detail and share a post about each location we went to as there are so many amazing places to discover.
Let's start on the 25th Feb and our day trip around Tashkent when we left the mountains. It's only a 1.5 hour drive back to the city so it's very convenient to get to and from the mountains.

Our first stop was the Hazrati Imam complex in old Tashkent. Most of the old center of the city was destroyed in a massive earthquake in 1966, so not much of the silk road history exists (you need to go to places like Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva for that). The Soviets rebuilt Tashkent after the quake as a flagship for Soviet design and infrastructure, so it is an interesting contrast to the Silk Road cities.....

This site dates from the 16th to 20th centuries, located in the Olmazor district of Tashkent city, Uzbekistan. The complex consists of the Moʻyi Muborak madrasa, the Qaffol Shoshi mausoleum, the Baroqxon Madrasa, the Hazrati Imam mosque, the Tillashayx mosque, and the Imam al-Bukhari Islamic Institute. The ensemble was built near the grave of Hazrati Imam, the first imam-khatib of Tashkent, a scholar, one of the first Islamic preachers in Tashkent, a poet and an artist (Wikipedia). This is a necessary first stop in Tashkent. Next up, my favorite place in Tashkent, the Chorsu Bazaar.



- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Chorsu Bazaar

Up next, probably my favorite place is the Chorsu Bazaar in old Tashkent. It is a huge market where you can buy most daily necessities; from meat, spices, bread, fruit and vegetables to clothing, household items and nick-nacks. It's all here and on a busy Sunday, there's a lot to see.

The large Soviet-esque dome was built in 1980 and that's where most of the meat is sold, from fresh lamb and beef to horse meat and cooking fat. You can buy offal and sheeps head, it's all out on display. From there, there are all different food sections.

My favorite is the bread making area. Our guide took us inside where they were making different breads in various types of ovens. The smell was amazing! We bought a couple of loaves fresh from the ovens and were able to eat them on the spot. Super tasty!

The guys were able to sample different sweets and dried fruit. There's so much amazing food to sample and it's very cheap if you want to buy. Definitely come here hungry if you want a food tour.

Lunch was amazing with somsa, shashlik (kebabs) and tea, all for only a couple of dollars. After that, it was time to explore the amazing metro system!




- Matt

 

[UGASkiDawg]

Nice trip report Matt!

 

[Mattadvproject]

Nice trip report Matt!

Thanks David, appreciate you following along. There's still a lot more to come, so keep following. I have more posts on Tashkent and then Samarkand, plus video. Uzbekistan certainly showed me that it's pretty consistent when it comes to great snow and no one there to compete with for fresh tracks.

 

[Mattadvproject]

Tashkent Metro

Exploring the Tashkent Metro - after finishing up at the Chorsu Bazaar, we headed underground to the Tashkent Metro. This is another must-see experience, exploring the underground and all of the beautiful stations. The Tashkent Metro is considered to be one of the most ornate railways in the world, with 38 stations and 4 different lines. It costs 2,000 SOM ($0.15) to ride it, so technically, if you didn't leave the Metro, you could cover all the stations for that price.

The stations also serve as nuclear bunkers and you can see the blast doors as you go past the bottom of the escalators towards the tracks. Prior to 2017, you weren't even allowed to take photographs but now you can. The Metro is very safe and convenient to use. We made a few different stops. My favorite station would have to be the Kosmonavtlar station which pays homage to the Soviet space program with blue ceramic medallions depicting famous cosmonauts such as Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

Next we stopped at Alisher Navoi, named after a famous 15th century Uzbek poet, which pays homage to the beautiful mosques and madrassas of the ancient Silk Road. Our final stop was at the Paxtakor station with beautiful mosaics depicting flowering cotton plants. We used the Metro to get to our next location, the famous Hotel Uzbekistan!



- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Hotel Uzbekistan

Our next stop was the famous Hotel Uzbekistan, a notable landmark in the city near the Amir Temur station. Built in 1974 with 17 floors and 234 rooms, has the capacity to house more than 900 guests. After the devastating earthquake of 1966 which destroyed much of Tashkent, the Soviets quickly redesigned and rebuilt the city with the Hotel Uzbekistan staged as the flagship hotel to house visiting dignitaries and foreign VIPs. Rumor has it that the KGB bugged many of the rooms and included two-way mirrors to eavesdrop on the guests!

The design of the building is supposed to be of an open book which is somewhat ironic then given the alleged spying that was going on inside. It is a prominent example of the Soviet brutalism style of architecture that was greatly featured in the rebuild of Tashkent.

We enjoyed a look around the lobby and a vodka and beers in the old school restaurant and bar area. After that we toured around some of the old neighborhoods still standing in the heart of the city that dated from the 1930's. It is interesting to see a modern city springing up around them but it's important to still see reminders of a different past and history....




- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Enjoying Plov!

Plov is possibly the most popular dish in Uzbekistan and what better place to try it than the Central Asian Pilaf Center in Tashkent, a restaurant that specializes in plov (plus they have salad and bread). Plov is a popular rice dish that generally consists of rice, carrots, raisins, chickpeas and meat of your choice (beef, lamb or horsemeat) and quail eggs. It can be somewhat sweet and potentially a little oily if it's not well drained. It's pretty tasty and a hearty meal in itself.

Enjoying plov is a very social experience and people will meet to enjoy a plov together over lunch. It is cooked in kazans, giant metal cauldrons heated by an open wood fire underneath. Lunchtime seems to be the most popular time to go so when we were there around 530pm it was a lot quiter.

The Plov Center will get through several tons of plov each day and it's a great cultural experience to see the plov being cooked and then trying it for yourself. Definitely a must-do in Tashkent!



- Matt

 

[chilehed]

What an amazing trip!

 

[Mattadvproject]

What an amazing trip!

Thank you @chilehed ! My second time in Uzbekistan didn't disappoint, I think it might be my favorite adventure overall. I still have plenty more to come, with an amazing day exploring the UNESCO world heritage listed city of Samarkand and then some of the ski POV video's that I filmed.....

 

[Drahtguy Kevin]

I miss plov. And the somsa. And the untracked powder…