Alma-Arasan Gorge & Hot Springs: An Easy Day Trip from Almaty
If you’re visiting Big Almaty Lake, it is ideal to pair it with Alma-Arasan, a gorge with natural hot springs that make an easy day trip from Almaty.
Alma-Arasan is, quite simply, stunning. Think slopes covered in Tien Shan spruce, hot and cold springs overlooking the river, a chilly plunge pool right in the river itself, and a waterfall a little further up the trail.
The springs are fed by geothermally heated water containing sulphur and radon. The hike begins at 1,730 meters of altitude, surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery, and it’s not too strenuous to get there.
I recommend two tours to get to Alma-Arasan Gorge — both also include a visit to Big Almaty Lake. I took this tour, a half-day tour, because I had limited time.
However, this tour is not much more expensive and is a full-day tour that also visits Ayusai Gorge and a falcon sanctuary that puts on eagle hunting shows.
Pick whichever aligns best with your schedule and preferences; both are excellently reviewed at 4.8 and 4.7 out of 5 stars, respectively.
The Alma-Arasan Hot Springs Hike
Frankly, this is a lot more of a walk than a hike. The pathway is mostly a series of grated walkways and stairs, making it a fairly doable hike for most visitors, though I wouldn’t call it wheelchair-accessible.
Starting at the parking area — where you can also grab a coffee or water — it’s approximately 500 meters along the path. You ultimately reach the hot springs after about a 15 minute leisurely walk.
You follow along the turns of the Prokhodnaya River, crossing it via the metal-grated walkway, all the while surrounded by steep slopes of forest that make you feel like you’re in in a nest of trees.
Best of all, accompanying you will be some adorable Eurasian red squirrels. These little guys are not shy in the slightest! I get the feeling that tourists feed them (please don’t!) because they kept hopping in front of people on the pathways and looking at us curiously.
There are about 120 steps along the way, but they aren’t particularly difficult or steep, and you encounter them throughout the walk, not all at once.
Listening to the sound of the rushing river, it’s hard to believe you’re this close to Almaty and its more than 2 million residents.
Hot Springs & Facilities
There are four outdoor pools the size of hot tubs. Three are warm pools and one is a cold pool. The warm pools are fed by red pipes, whereas the cold pool is filled by a plain metal pipe that takes water directly from the cold spring source!
There’s also a fenced-off plunge pool so that you can safely brave a dip in the alpine river and feel its icy rush.
The facilities are well-considered and rather natural to fit in with the scenery as much as possible.
There is a lower level next to the hot springs, which contain two showers stalls that are heated by the same geothermal waters that fill up the hot tubs. The upper level has a wooden viewing and relaxation deck as well as two changing stalls.
One detail I found interesting was the design of the changing rooms and showers. Instead of traditional doors, the rooms use a spiral or nautilus-like layout that provides privacy naturally.
When occupied, you simply place the cord between the two hooks at the entrance, which signals that someone is inside.
Waterfall Hike
If you are visiting independently and you have time to wander a bit, it’s absolutely worth continuing to the waterfall. If you’re on a guided tour, you may have to choose between the waterfall and taking a dip. Since I wanted to be able to write a comprehensive guide, I chose the waterfall hike rather than a hot spring soak, knowing my limited time.
From the springs, you follow the path for roughly 200 meters, climbing another 80 steps (I counted!) en route. Once you reach the top of the stairs, you’ll see a sign — turn right here to continue toward the waterfall.
Note: Turning left will bring you to a rather ramshackle former pagoda-like structure; there are no particularly good views here so frankly it’s not worth your time unless you have a ton of extra time to kill.
The waterfall itself is actually two-for-one! There are two waterfalls in the same area, and when I visited in May, they weren’t particularly strong. At first glance, the right-hand stream appears more impressive, spreading out across a broad rock face in the classic waterfall cascade shape that covers a rock face.
Be careful at the waterfall though — there are some stairs that have gotten destroyed and rusted away, so you’ll want to walk extra carefully here.
The left-hand stream is much thinner, going down to barely a trickle by your feet. However, if you track it upward with your eyes, you’ll notice that it begins much higher up the mountain than the right side, disappearing into the cliffs, before eventually tumbling down to join its sister waterfall below.
I wouldn’t go here specifically for the waterfall — the hot springs and gorge walk are the main appeal — but it’s still a cool sight to behold. And since it requires so little additional effort, I do recommend it.
Inside Tip: Before heading back, cross the river and continue walking for another couple of minutes. There’ll be a sharp turn to the left; ignore it. Instead, walk a few steps down to the right.
This is a hidden little viewpoint overlooking the river valley that gives you a peep of the full river valley and mountains in the distance, which you can’t see from other angles of Alma-Arasan.
Getting to Alma-Arasan Hot Springs
By Tour
Personally, I went to Alma-Arasan on organized tour coupled with Big Almaty Lake, which I loved and thought was worth the cost.
It’s currently not possible to visit Big Almaty Lake independently without a tour… unless you opt for a rather excruciating hike without a very good view along the way. This may change in the future if they reopen the road to Big Almaty Lake to all cars and taxis.
However, for the time being, I thought this was a good option and it seemed like one of the only ways to see the Big Almaty Lake, the sight I most wanted to see all those years ago when I first dreamed of a trip to Almaty.
Plus, it brought me here to Alma-Arasan hot springs, which I hadn’t even heard of until I read about the combined tour.
On my trip, we left Almaty at 6:00 AM, spent about an hour at Big Almaty Lake, then continued to Alma-Arasan.
We spent roughly an hour at Alma-Arasan in total — which for me, included a hike to the waterfall but wasn’t enough time to also take a dip in the hot springs. We were back in Almaty by around 11:30 AM.
That was on this tour, which I liked because I wanted more time to explore Almaty so a half-day tour suited my schedule much better.
Another option is also this tour, which is highly rated by one of the top tour companies in Kazakhstan. It’s only ~$10 USD more, and it’s a full-day tour. Like the tour I took, it also includes Big Almaty Lake, but it adds on Ayusai Gorge and a visit to the Sunkar Falcon Sanctuary.
The sanctuary was created to help conserve the endangered saker falcon, but they also rehabilitate and train other birds of prey.
Those birds include golden and white-tailed eagles, peregrine falcons, and other species listed in the Red Book of Kazakhstan, an official list of endangered and protected wildlife. These Red Books are common in a lot of former SSRs and CIS countries.
The sanctuary hosts falconry shows 5 times a week except in winter, showcasing the Kazakh traditions of falconry and eagle hunting. Eagle hunting is something I’ve been fascinated with ever since watching The Eagle Huntress, a documentary about a 13-year-old Kazakh girl living in Mongolia entering a male-dominated eagle hunting competition.
Listed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage tradition, this falconry technique has been used for more than 4,000 years by Kazakh nomads, hunting in tandem with golden eagles while on horseback!
By Public Transit
I want to give the disclaimer that I haven’t done this personally and I’ve just researched it using the Kazakh public transit and maps app called 2GIS, written as 2ГИС in Cyrillic. I highly recommend downloading it before your trip; it is far more accurate than Google Maps.
Doing a bit of research, I’ve found that in theory, you can visit Alma-Arasan via the city bus line 211. It runs from the Sport Palace to Alma-Arasan (dropping you off about 10 minutes away) for 150 KZT (see schedule information here). The route should take 85 minutes. The Sport Palace bus stop is called Байтурсынова and is right near the Baikonur subway.
By Taxi
This method may be a little tricky because while it might be easy to get a taxi to bring you out to Alma-Arasan, it may be a little tougher to get one coming back. You may want to hire a driver or find a taxi that will wait for you while you’re visiting.
While on my Kolsay & Charyn Canyon tour, I met two girls who did the Big Almaty Lake hike and really struggled to find a taxi to bring them home once they finished the hike. Therefore, I would highly, highly recommend that you sort out return transit if you take a taxi to Alma-Arasan, or you risk getting stuck!
By Car
If you’ve rented a car for the time you’re visiting Kazakhstan, it’s extremely easy to get to Alma-Arasan. Type in Alma-Arasan Sanatoriy (Алма-Арасан санаторий) in your GPS and get going! There’s plenty of parking here, including a café run from the back of a car.
I recommend pre-booking a rental car here via Discover Cars to ensure you have a car for your stay. I prefer this booking engine as it lets you look at cheaper local operators as well as the bigger international brands to get the best prices on rentals. It also has really good filter options and transparent reviews.
Allison Green is a former teacher who has been travel blogging since 2016, visiting 75+ countries in total. She has a Masters in Teaching and a B.A. in English and Creative Writing. As a former educator, she merges her writing and educational experience to encourage ethical, sustainable travel. She has been a speaker at the World Travel Writers Conference and TBEX. Her writing, photography, and podcasting work has appeared in National Geographic, CNN Arabic, CBC Canada, and Forbes, amongst others. When she’s not on the road, she lives in Bangkok, Thailand.
