Besh-Tash Nature Park is located south of the city of Talas on the northern slopes of the Talas Ala-Too and includes the gorges: Kolba, Besh-Tash, Urmaral, and Kumush-Tag with their branches. In these gorges, rivers of the same name flow with a widely branched network of tributaries. The territory is cut by deep ravines. In summer, the gorges look very beautiful. Juniper thickets are scattered along the slopes. In the upper reaches of the gorges, on the right slopes, there are sparse forests of spruce and juniper. Above the boundary of the forest-meadow zone, bright green alpine meadows begin. In this zone, the cool breath of glaciers is felt. In the ridge part of the range lies the Chiyim-Tash pass (3575 m), connecting the Urmaral basin with the valleys of Kara-Kulja and Chatkal.
In 1996, a nature park was established in the Talas region over an area of 32,411 hectares to preserve unique natural forests and high-altitude meadows. The plant world is represented by more than 800 species of flowering plants, of which about 28 species are woody-shrub. Among the representatives of the Red Book, the snow leopard, the Turkestan lynx, the golden eagle, the kumai, the saker falcon, and the bearded vulture inhabit this area. The Besh-Tash River flows through the park, where rainbow trout can be found. At an altitude of 2997 m, there is an elongated moraine-dammed lake Besh-Tash, 28 m deep and covering an area of 0.5 sq. km. The water in it is turquoise. In the Besh-Tash gorge, beautiful forests of Tien Shan spruce mixed with Semenov fir have been preserved.
The administrative building is located in the city of Talas. The distance to the reserve is 13 km, and you can drive another 30 km into the park. The fee for foreign tourists for vehicle entry is 20 dollars, and for visiting the park, it is 10 dollars.
Chiyim-Tash
A picturesque birch grove at the mouth of Chiyim-Tash (a left tributary of the Urmaral River) serves as a wonderful place for recreation. In the middle reaches of the Urmaral, ancient Turkic rock paintings from the 6th to 8th centuries can be found. On the right bank of Besh-Tash, bizarre stone sculptures of Kesken-Debe, a cultural monument from the 6th to 8th centuries, have been preserved to this day. You can visit three mausoleums dated to the 18th-19th centuries, located at the intersection of the Urmaral River with the Talas - Taraz highway.
