First Anniversary

     We knew we would celebrate our first wedding anniversary here in Kazakhstan, and we were glad that it fell on a weekend. As first year teachers we spend many hours outside of work preparing and planning. An anniversary was the perfect excuse for us to get out of town and do something fun for the day. 

     After a breakfast of Nic's famous omelets, we packed a picnic and a fleece and started driving south, uphill towards the mountains. The road was lined with mature trees whose leaves were just beginning to turn. In only about 25 minutes we had made it Chimbulak, the ski resort.
     Chimbulak, just last winter, hosted the 2011 Asian Winter Games. It seemed that things had been upgraded...new wood decks, nice cafes with patios and a brand new gondola. Unfortunately, there was also a fair amount of debris around the ski slopes. Rusted metal, torn plastic sheets and wire in mangled piles. Even with this, we were overjoyed to be up in the mountains. We purchased our tickets and let the gondola take us up.

 A view looking North. Notice the incredible smog layer. Everything underneath that is the city of Almaty and everything past that is the Asian Steppe. 

 We watched this old truck lug up the switchbacks underneath our gondola. Once it got around this corner, we saw that it had "ambulance" spray-painted in red on the side of the bed....

 And we made it! We forgot our GPS, but have read that the gondola goes to around 10k feet. It was beautiful and we were certainly about as high as we could go without being on the side of one of these peaks. 

 A snowman greeted us as we began to explore the high valley. 

 Nic, deciphering the trail ahead of me. 

 Here Nic scouts out the perfect picnic spot. 

 Beautiful and bright wild pansies dotted the otherwise neutral landscape. 

 What's an alpine landscape without some lichen? 

 Looking East. Nic is staking a claim to our picnic spot. 

 View from our picnic spot, looking South. 

 It's hard to make out, but you can actually see the buildings of Almaty in the distance beneath the smog. 

 Bread, cheese, sausage and fresh mountain air. Throw in a handsome husband and you get one happy Katie. 

 Check out the glaciers up there...in many years from now, where those glaciers once were there will be wide hanging vallies.

 And back down. We had limited time at the top because we still had a full day. We needed to run to the Green Bazaar to pick up some ingredients for the dinner Nic was going to make...paella!. 

 Paella in the works...and no, we cannot find Green Flash Imperial IPA in Kazakhstan. We brought a few bottles for special occasions just like this one.