THE TIEN SHAN LAKES
Kolsai and Kaindy: the lakes and the sunken forest
How Kaindy's drowned spruce forest came to stand in turquoise water, what the Kolsai lakes offer, and how the two fit into a canyon day trip.
See Charyn Canyon tours on GetYourGuide ↗Two very different lakes
The lakes added onto the classic Charyn trip sit up in the Tien Shan foothills southeast of Almaty and offer a complete change of scene from the dry red canyon: clear alpine water framed by dark spruce forest and, higher up, bare mountain slopes. Kolsai and Kaindy are usually visited together on the same leg of a full day, but they're quite different in character — Kolsai is a classic mountain lake to walk beside, while Kaindy is the strange, quiet one people remember.
The story of Kaindy's sunken forest
Kaindy Lake is often said to have formed in 1911, when a strong earthquake in the region triggered a landslide that dammed a mountain valley and flooded the forest growing there. The submerged Tien Shan spruce (Picea schrenkiana) died, but the cold, still water preserved their trunks rather than rotting them away, so the bare pale poles still stand upright out of the lake more than a century later. Above the surface they look like weathered masts; below it, in clear conditions, the drowned branches are still visible — an eerie, genuinely unusual sight.
The Kolsai chain
Kolsai is not a single lake but a chain, usually described as three lakes stepping up the valley, connected by trails through the spruce. Day trips from Almaty generally reach the first and lowest lake, which is the most accessible and has the most facilities; walking on to the higher lakes is a longer hike that suits overnight visitors more than a one-day loop. At the lower lake there's normally time for a short shore walk, a rest, and optional paid extras like a horseback ride or a rowing boat.
The rough road to Kaindy
Part of what keeps Kaindy special is that it isn't easy to reach. The final stretch is a rough track usually covered in a Soviet-era UAZ four-wheel-drive rather than the main tour minibus, and then a short walk down to the shore. It's bumpy and basic, but it's also part of the experience, and it's the main reason the lake stays quieter and less developed than somewhere with paved access would be. Expect the transfer to add time, and dress for it being cooler up here than down in the canyon.
Seeing them well in one day
Fitting both lakes and the canyon into a single day is ambitious, and the honest trade-off is time: you'll see each place, but not linger. If the lakes are the part you care about most, an overnight tour based in Saty village gives you longer at Kolsai and Kaindy and softens the driving. If the canyon is your priority and the lakes are a bonus, the full-day loop delivers both — just go in knowing it's a highlights day rather than a slow one, and pace yourself accordingly.
More things to do nearby
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