Dzungarian Alatau: The Forgotten Range

The Tian Shan mountains get all the attention. They are Almaty's dramatic southern backdrop, the range that anchors the city's identity and draws the hikers and skiers and photographers. But to the northeast of Almaty, separated from the Tian Shan by the broad corridor of the Ile River valley, a different mountain range rises from the steppe and receives a fraction of the visitors and a fraction of the recognition. The Dzungarian Alatau — named for the Dzungars, the Oirat Mongol confederation that controlled this territory — is longer than the Swiss Alps, less well-documented than almost any mountain range of comparable size in the world, and strikingly beautiful.

This is a range that serious mountaineers and ornithologists have known about for decades, and that general travelers are beginning to discover. That combination of scale and relative obscurity is the defining quality of the Dzungarian Alatau: it is a place that rewards the effort of reaching it with something genuinely different from the experiences available in the more trafficked ranges nearby.

What the Range Is

The Dzungarian Alatau runs roughly east-west for approximately 450 kilometers along the Kazakhstan-China border, from the Dzungarian Gate — a famous wind corridor between two mountain systems — westward toward the Ile River basin. Its highest peaks exceed 4,500 meters, with permanent glaciers in the upper zones. The lower slopes carry dense forests of Tian Shan spruce and fir; the alpine meadows above the tree line are among the richest high-altitude pastures in Central Asia.

The range is divided between Kazakhstan and China, and access from the Kazakhstan side is through the Almaty Region — specifically through the Lepsy and Kora river valleys, which provide the main entry points for trekking and nature observation.

Why It Matters

The Dzungarian Alatau is of the most important biodiversity corridors in Central Asia. The range's position between the Central Asian steppe and the more continental climate zones of eastern Kazakhstan creates conditions for an unusual mix of species. Snow leopard, Marco Polo argali, Siberian ibex, brown bear, and wolves all inhabit the higher zones. The river valleys carry some of the densest concentrations of wintering raptors in the region, and the spring bird migration through the Dzungarian Gate — of the few natural wind gaps in the mountain systems separating Central Asia from the eastern steppe — is a phenomenon that birdwatchers travel significant distances to witness.

The range is also geologically remarkable: the Dzungarian Gate, the pass between the Dzungarian Alatau and the Tarbagatai range to the north, is of the windiest corridors on earth, a geographic feature that has shaped the climate and the history of the region in equal measure. Caravans and armies and migrations have passed through it for millennia. The wind still comes through as if nothing has changed.

The Dzungarian Alatau does not hold its history in monuments or ruins. It holds it in the Dzungarian Gate — a wind pass between mountain systems that has been of the most consequential geographical features in Eurasian history — and in the bones of its landscape, which carries the memory of every migration and invasion and seasonal movement that has passed through it.

The Saka and the Deep Nomadic Past

The earliest documented human presence in the Dzungarian Alatau region dates to the Saka period, the nomadic culture of the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE whose burial mounds appear throughout the Almaty Region and the Kazakh steppe to the north and east. The high-altitude pastures of the Dzungarian Alatau were summer grazing territory; the river valleys provided winter corridor routes for the seasonal movement of livestock between mountain and steppe.

The Dzungarian Gate, specifically, was never just a meteorological phenomenon. It was a route: a gap in the mountain systems wide enough and low enough to allow the passage of large groups with their animals. Armies used it. Migration waves used it. The Huns in their westward movement in the 4th century CE are believed to have passed through this corridor; later movements of Turkic and Mongol peoples followed the same geography for the same reasons. Geography is destiny, and the Dzungarian Gate has been shaping destinies for two thousand years.

The Kazakh Khanate and the Dzungar Wars

After the Kazakh Khanate was founded in 1465 by Janibek and Kerei Khans, the territory east of Lake Balkhash — including the Dzungarian Alatau region — was part of the broader Kazakh world. But the 17th and early 18th centuries brought catastrophe from the east. The Dzungar Khanate, an Oirat Mongol confederation based to the east of the pass that bears their name, launched a series of devastating invasions of Kazakh territory that reached their peak in the period Kazakhs call the Aktaban Shubyryndy — "the barefoot flight" — of 1723. Tens of thousands of Kazakhs were killed or displaced; the eastern territories including the Dzungarian Alatau zone were overrun.

The Kazakh-Dzungar Wars lasted from the late 17th century until the Dzungar Khanate's destruction by the Qing Dynasty in 1755-1758, in what historians have called a genocide: the Dzungar population of approximately 600,000 was reduced to near extinction by Chinese military campaigns. The Dzungarian Gate, through which so much violence had passed, became a boundary between empires.

Russian Annexation and the Making of a Border

The Russian empire's annexation of the Kazakh steppe between 1731 and 1848 extended eastward through the Almaty region and eventually reached the territory of the Dzungarian Alatau. The range became a frontier zone — on side the expanding Russian empire, on the other the Qing Dynasty's Xinjiang province. The border treaties of the 19th century fixed the range's division between two states that persist into the present day: Kazakhstan on the western and northern slopes, China on the eastern and southern.

Soviet Scientific Documentation

The Soviet period brought systematic scientific work to the Dzungarian Alatau. Botanical, zoological, and geological surveys documented the range's extraordinary biodiversity — the snow leopard populations, the raptor migrations, the endemic plant species, the glacier systems — while maintaining the range as a near-impenetrable zone for casual travel. Military and border sensitivity kept most people out; scientific expeditions were the primary mode of engagement.

After Independence

Kazakhstan's independence in 1991 brought the Dzungarian State Nature Reserve formal protection status and renewed attention to the range as a conservation priority. The range remains of the least-visited significant mountain systems in the former Soviet Union, and its relative inaccessibility is now understood as an asset rather than a liability. The silence of the inner valleys, the wildness of the high terrain, the unhabituated wildlife — these are the direct results of a history of low human traffic, and they are worth protecting.

The activities in the Dzungarian Alatau are self-directed and require preparation, but the range rewards serious engagement with experiences that are genuinely difficult to find anywhere else in Central Asia.

Multi-Day Trekking

The primary activity in the Dzungarian Alatau is trekking, and the range's scale means that even a week-long route barely scratches the surface of what's available. The Lepsy and Kora river valleys both provide access to extended routes that climb from lowland steppe forest through alpine meadow to the high glacier zones. The terrain is varied, the wildlife density is high, and the route-finding requires competence — this is not a trail-marked system. Standard trekking maps of the region, supplemented by GPS, are the navigation tools. Local guides from the access communities know the routes and the conditions well, and hiring is strongly recommended for any route beyond the lower valley day hikes.

Birdwatching at the Dzungarian Gate

The Dzungarian Gate wind corridor is of the great bird migration concentration points in Asia. In spring, from late April through May, raptors in particular funnel through this narrow pass on their northward migration in numbers that serious birdwatchers travel intercontinental distances to witness. Steppe eagles, booted eagles, long-legged buzzards, various harriers and falcons — the species list for a week at the Gate in peak migration is extraordinary. This is a specialist interest but a genuinely world-class, and the Dzungarian Gate belongs in the same conversation as the great migration watch-points of Europe and North America.

Wildlife Observation

Snow leopard, Siberian ibex, Marco Polo argali, brown bear, wolf, red fox — the mammal list of the Dzungarian Alatau reads like the encyclopedia of Central Asian mountain wildlife. Seeing any of the larger species requires patience, good timing, and luck, but the ibex in particular are visible in the rocky upper zones with reasonable regularity, and the ibex of this range are less habituated than those in more visited areas. Dawn and dusk are the best observation windows.

Photography Expeditions

The combination of unmodified wilderness landscape, high-altitude light, diverse wildlife, and dramatic geology makes the Dzungarian Alatau a significant destination for nature and landscape photographers. The glacier-carved cirques of the upper range, the old-growth spruce forests of the lower valleys, the raptors at the Gate, the high-summer wildflower meadows — all produce images that the more trafficked ranges of Central Asia cannot offer simply because the more trafficked ranges show signs of traffic. The Dzungarian Alatau looks as it looks because it has not been heavily photographed, and that quality is disappearing from the world at a rate that makes what remains increasingly valuable.

Simply Being in the Inner Range

This is worth listing as its own activity. The inner valleys of the Dzungarian Alatau, away from the access routes and the range periphery, offer a quality of wilderness experience that requires no specific task to justify it. Setting up camp in a river valley at 2,500 meters, with the glacier visible on the south-facing slope and no human structure visible in any direction, is of those experiences that recalibrates something that modern life tends to calibrate out.

The Dzungarian Alatau is not forgiving of inadequate preparation. The tips below address the specific challenges of this destination rather than general travel advice.

Sort Out the Permits Before You Leave Almaty

This is the most common mistake. The Dzungarian State Nature Reserve requires entry permits, and the border zone restrictions in the eastern sections require additional documentation that takes time to process. Contact the reserve administration or a licensed trekking agency well in advance of your departure date. Summer weekends can see permit processing backed up; plan for at least two weeks' lead time for any route that enters restricted zones. An agency that specializes in eastern Kazakhstan trekking will handle this for you, which is the path of least frustration.

Hire a Local Guide for Any Route Beyond the Lower Valleys

The range has no marked trails. Topographic maps exist for the region but are sometimes inaccurate or outdated. The local guides from the access communities know the passes, the river crossings, the locations of reliable water, and the zones where bear activity is highest. This is not a range where confident orienteering in an unfamiliar mountain system is a responsible approach. The cost of a good local guide — approximately $50 to $100 per day — is of the best investments available in this destination.

Plan for the Wind

The Dzungarian Gate earns its name. The wind through the corridor between the mountain systems can exceed 100 kilometers per hour during the passage of pressure fronts, and the inner valleys of the range are not immune to sudden and serious storms. Carry a tent rated for severe conditions. Have a plan for bad weather on any multi-day route. Don't rely on weather forecasts for the gate zone — the local meteorological phenomena operate on a schedule that regional forecasting systems imperfectly capture.

Acclimatize Before Going High

If you're coming from Almaty (850 meters elevation) and planning routes into the 3,000 to 4,000 meter zones, allow at least two nights in the lower range valleys before ascending. Altitude sickness at these elevations is possible, particularly for visitors who are unacclimatized. The descent to lower elevation is the treatment; the inner range is not a place where descent is quick or easy.

Leave No Trace — Literally

The inner valleys of the Dzungarian Alatau are pristine in ways that very few mountain areas anywhere in the world still are. Pack out everything. Bury human waste well away from water sources. Do not disturb wildlife, particularly during breeding season. The unhabituated quality of the wildlife here — the fact that ibex don't flee at 200 meters, that birds behave as if humans are not a threat — exists because this range has not been mistreated. That condition is worth preserving.