Heliboarding in Kazakhstan anyone?

I love extreme travel and I love snowboarding. And I love combining the two. After an awesome day riding with Kev and Ivo a few years back in Laax on one of those few days when Cassons was open (a day in which we squeezed in Cassons, Entrance exam aka buendner Vorab - Alp Ruschein, Megawatt and a couple in between), Ivo mentioned that he had heard that Heliboarding in Russian Military helicopters (Mi8) in the Northern Tien-Shan mountains in Kazakhstan was excellent. Marek had also sent me pictures of these same choppers used in Uzbekistan and they were excellent. I decided to spend some time researching Kazakhstan.

After a few weeks I gave up on the idea of organising a trip and decided to do it much like I have done most of my other travel: find someone you can trust, get on a plane with your first nights accommodation sorted so you don't get ripped off by touts, and sort the rest out once you were there.

The little I knew about Kazakhstan was rather frightening. While doing my research and arranging a visa I stumbled on the following page on the US and Canadian Kazakhstan Embassy website (http://www.kazakhembus.com/Nuc_h.html) Its pretty heavy stuff but I guess the world, in the words of Sam Keen, has little in common with Walt Disney and is a brutal bitch, red in tooth and claw, who destroys what she creates. It doesn't even have much in common with the worst I have seen of Borat, and that gets pretty grim!

Another interesting point on Kazakhstan visas is this: Needless to say, like all the former Soviet states they are tricky to get hold of. If you are planning on going for more than 3 months you need to supply the embassy with the results of a recent HIV test. If you are going for less than 3 months there is no need. I couldn't quite get my head around this. Is there an unwritten rule that Kazakh's keep clear of foreigners for 3 months, or at least find out what visa they are carrying? If anyone know the answer, please leave me a comment.

I sent many an email, perhaps even some terrible Russian ones, to any website or source I could find on winter sports in Kazakhstan and I got enough varied responses to strike the fear of god into me. I had ones ranging from, "wire me your money, I will meet you at the airport and I will be your heliboarding guide for Euro 1000 a day" to "Don't come to Kazakhstan for heli, we had too many people die last year from avalanches so we no longer do this". This was later confirmed by Nikolay. More about him in subsequent posts.

Perhaps heli operations in the Northern Tien-Shan mountains are now safe, reliable and worth spending your hard earned money on. I enjoy a lot of risk but I like to remain quite calculated about those I choose to take on. Feel free to try heli in Kazakhstan, or invite me along on an all expenses paid trip to prove otherwise, but for time being I have decided on alternative spots. I have heard that approaching the Northern Tien-Shan mountains from Bischek in Kyrgyzstan is very doable. I have seen some super pictures in fact (all heli pictures look good. I believe one can get better... read on, read on)!

With Kazakhstan now only a fact sheet filed away in the back of my head, and the 05/06 season fast coming to a close, I needed to look elsewhere for my powder dreams. Enter waytorussia.com and Matt!