Climbing in and around Bishkek, Krygyzstan

I have a very close friend who will be moving to Bishkek, Krygyzstan pretty soon, and will be living there for 10 months while she conducts scientific research. She is also a climber and will be looking for an outlet during the long cold winter months in particular.

Both of us have been to Bishkek for a geology field trip before (we are both graduate students at the University of Oregon), so we know the very basic layout of the town, and I have done a bit of climbing at Ala Archa.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend or point us to an indoor climbing gym in the area. Even better, my friend is in the market for a belay partner. She speaks some Russian but ability to speak English or German would be a huge plus.

Any other climbing-related advice would be super welcome.

Bump. Hoping for any morsel of information, no matter how small.

I don't have any information about climbing gyms... however I'm based in Taiwan and looking to possibly climb in Kyrgyzstan this summer. It would be cool to get in touch with your friend if she has time to go exploring!

Kyrgyzstan is a really cool country. A friends dad used to run the UNDP in bishkek and I spent a month there interning for the UN after high school in 2007. I believe there is some sort of climbing facility in the city. We found a gym with probably what was a soviet era wall somewhere in bishkek but I can't at all remember any specifics.

As for climbing Ala Archa definitely has a ton of alpine objectives - I imagine you're aware of this. I dont know of any established trad or sport crags. There are plenty of high altitude and big wall objectives east and south in the tien shan.

Kyle dempster spent some time there a couple years ago, and made a pretty great vid of his trip:
vimeo.com/69045994

Heres another vid of alpine stuff in the tien shan:
outsideonline.com/featured-…

Anyways I hope your friend enjoys her time there! Kyrgyzstan is a land of paradoxes; I thought the interaction of the remnants of soviet secularism in the north and fundamentalist islam in the south was really interesting.

Loved the Kyle Dempster video.
Thanks for posting it

Oh, Kyrgyzstan. I was there about 10 years ago with the Peace Corps. I don't know if there are any climbing gyms in Bishkek, but I think that there have to be some peace corps volunteers who climb or know someone who does. If your friend hasn't encountered any PCVs yet, let me know and I can try to put her into contact with some peace corps managers.

Thank! I'm the friend, I just got to Kyrgyzstan. When I'm not working this summer I'd love to meet up. I'm living in Bishkek for the winter and will be around on and off through November. I would be really interested in getting in touch with some local PCV, I really have no idea who's here!

Talking about indoor climbing there is a new palce where you cna climb caled K2, it on chapaeva Street croses with Ahunbaeva. Staff speak English. In K2 there are bunch of foreigners whom you might join for climbing. Since its already warm oputside suggestion to climb in Chonkurchak, which is 40 min away from Bishkek. There is no public transportation that goes there. I hope this was usefull.

After further research I can tell you that you need to Google 'K2 Sports Centre' to get your route to the climbing wall. Their site is k2.kg/skalodrom.html. The wall is 11.5m high, is open from 10a.m. to 10p.m. and costs 300 some for one hour. Hopefully I will use it tomorrow...

Maybe a little off topic, but I'm traveling through Kyrgyzstan for a few weeks in July and would love to get on a moderate trad multi pitch climb. I really only see one on mountain project called Schwaba. It sounds like a great climb and I'd be stoked to get on it. It would be great to meet up with a climber in the area as I will be traveling alone mostly. Also a returned PCV from Tanzania, so it would be fun to get in touch with PCV's in the area just to compare experiences if nothing else. I'd really appreciate any advice/contacts you guys can provide!

I attempted Schwaba last year and got chased off by weather. We found good climbing on sound rock, well protected, at least as far as I got. Beta from different people was kind of all over the place though, so I suspect there isn't one exact line that everyone does. Follow your nose, and it should be a good time.