Highly recommend it!

Safe and nice day trip during my vacation in Almaty. Thanks to Max and the crew. Did it last year and came back this year again.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

1 day ski trip

We walked with Maxim around the outskirts of the Butakovo gorge. Maxim is a very competent and interesting guide. Not only does he tell a lot of interesting things from both the technical side and stories from life. The main thing in activities with Maxim is safety; while the group is resting, he checks the slopes and chooses the safest and most importantly interesting ones, suitable for the group’s experience. I recommend him one hundred percent as a ski touring guide!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Shim(Chim)Bulak - the best guides here!

My wife and I have different levels of skiing. I am a fairly experienced rider, and my wife is a beginner. It was important for us to find accompaniment for our period of stay in the Almaty Mountains. But, as usual, we realized it at the last moment. Contact FrozenRocks. Maxim responded very quickly and was able to find a guide, Yulia, for us.Yulia found out all our capabilities, the presence/absence of equipment and the conditions for working with us) She helped select equipment for my wife, and, assessing our skills, allocated her time - she herself began retraining my wife for freeride, and for me she outlined routes for independent freeride in the vicinity of the pistes. It turned out to be very effective! As a result, we received both training and an excellent gurney. In addition, Yulia helped with planning our time and skiing program not only in Shambulak, but also at other resorts in the region. The end of the trip was backcountry skiing with Oleg for me and independent skiing for my wife. Oleg is also an excellent guide. In half a day of skiing, he and I managed to drive through places where I had not yet skied on my own, as well as carry out two hour-long ascents and descents on the virgin snow of nearby slopes!In general, thanks to FrozenRocks - Maxim, Yulia and Oleg, we managed to fully realize our plans and have a great ride! All the guys are attentive, clear and positive! Highly recommended, as they say!)

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Ski tour in Ridder

A sweater in Ridder is a separate kind of pleasure. Unforgettable spots, excellent guides, wonderful ride. And like the icing on the cake - a bathhouse with a beautiful snowdrift outside. Frozen Rocks is better. Ridder is a place where I will definitely return.

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

Custom 3 days of skiing

We had a great time with Max. He did a custom 3 day ski trip with us for a couple of days at 2 ski resorts and one day of touring. He was very knowledgeable, helpful and great at finding us amazing snow and powder. Highly recommend!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Skitour with FrozenRocks

Perfection is the right word to describe my experience with FrozenRocks. Staring from answering plenty of my questions well in advance before the trip, provide me advices about accomodation and services availability in Kazakhstan through highly qualified guiding and end up comfortable transfers. I plan to come back for skitouring fun with FrozenRocks again.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Professional and interesting!

Very neat and professional guide Max. There are always good ascent routes and interesting descent lines. If you need help, the guide is always with you! And most importantly - it’s safe with him!!! - checks the snow himself before descending, in unsafe areas everything is clearly organized! I recommend!!!

Brilliant, beautiful experience!

We had a really great experience! We are experienced skiiers but had never done Backcountry skiing. Our guide, Maxim, was really patient with us. He has a lot of experienced and found the perfect hike for us, which we enjoyed from the start to the end. He is also a very nice guy, with proficient English skills, so we had great conversations. We can highly recommend booking this tour if you would like to explore the Tian Shan mountains off the beaten track!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Just awesome

Found this guys just before arriving in Kazachstan and it was an excellent choice! Everything went just fine! My guide Vlad is such an awesome guy. I really appreciated his company, his knowledge, what else I can say, totally recommend this trip for anyone, especially for solo travellers!

Review of: Altyn Emel. Singing dune and Aktau mountains 2 days tour

An unforgettable tour with an extraordinary guide!

When I decided to go back to Almaty after my trip in 2022, I directly contacted Max, because he was an amazing guide on last year. In Sept 2023, we made a 4-days tour in Altyn-Emel and Tuzkol Lake, and it was an incredible tour! Max is a very professional guide, with a deep knowledge of the sites he visits with you, able to provide a lot of interesting info about them. He also knows extremely well the region and can therefore propose breathtaking visits of hidden sites, far from touristic ones. He was considerate, courteous and as a woman travelling alone, I felt completely secured with him. He clearly meets the highest standards, and I strongly recommend him (also for mountains sports he is so passionate about!)

great Ski touring trip in Kazakhstan

Great experience and adventure in the beautiful kazakhs\' mountains. Great crew taking care of the level of the group, the snow conditions and the motivation. I recommend to travel with them it was perfect to visit the country and do the sport that we love. Bisous

Review of: 5 Days Shymbulak Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding

Well organised ski-touring.

3-day-ski-touring, Shymbulak and Butaksuka-Valley. Very good contact with Max, excellent guiding by Dima, perfect English, no complaints from my side, reasonable price. I would book again.

Best

I went to ridder camp twice in december 2022 and march 2023. Best trip, great snow, excellent guides. Houses with all amenities. Julia you are the best, thank you!

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

Great Almaty experience

I’m not used to leave reviews, but Max really deserves it. Professional, precise and very kind. I spent two days with him, one skiing and one hiking in a wonderful Canyon. If you wanna enjoy Almaty’s natural beauties Max is your best choice

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Great Ski touring in the Altai mountains

Great trip with a great group of people. A fantastic chance to ski a very out the way place. Warm and comfortable accommodation.

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

Thrilling, stunning, exciting

I have been ski touring with Frozen Rocks company in Ridder back in December 2022. The trip was well organized with respect to accommodation, logistics and food supply. For 3 days in a row we were ski-touring at different locations every day. So the intensity was varying. Good to have a good company aside along with professional guides/instructors. A great bonus was to finish a hard work day in a sauna well prepared by a accommodations holds!

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

First time ski touring with Max -- amazing!

We went ski touring together with Maxim, for the first time in our lives. Communication before the tour was clear and understandable, Maxim helped not only with renting one split board, but also recommended a place for an excellent rental of a second board; he showed a video from the location in advance. On the day of the tour we met exactly on time, quickly got to the place. Maxim is careful with regard to safety, performs group checks, patiently walks us through a new sport for us. We climbed up the picturesque valley, timing turned out exactly as expected. It is important to go ski touring not for the sake of skiing (it is very short in time), but also just to enjoy the views, a mini-hike. The atmosphere during the ascent was just like hiking, everyone helped each other. Maxim suggested some techniques, and provided practice. We finished climbing tired but happy, had a snack and went down. The local snow was very different from the one we are used to: very crumbly, almost entirely composed of facets. But you get used to it and get a lot of pleasure from unrolled wide slopes.I highly recommend Maxim as a guide, we match on interests and manner of communication, and hope to go again!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

I'm going to join their tours again.

I took the 1-day ski-tour trip with these guys. It was a fine sunny day with amazing views!On the way downhill the weather got very foggy but thanks to the guide we all came back safe and sound.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Excellent tour near by Almaty

I have participated in skitour with Frozen Rocks in February 2023 and had a nice experience being part of that tour. All participants were good companions and we have spend good time on a whole route. The tour was well organized and performed. We made very memorizable descents on the slopes of Kok-Zhailau place.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Ski touring a go go in pow pow.

The people are great, beautiful mountains, great food. Cool to discover a piece of Kazakhstan. So much more to see. Thank you Julia and all the team. Peter Rabbit on the roof.

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

Magical

Just returned from a week in this lovely area. Warm welcome, impeccable services. Very good skiing conditions. Julia organized the logistics beautifully and was very available to tell us about this very beautiful country.

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

It was awesome

Excellent guides, they selected routes where there were no traces other than ours, they also selected the difficulty for the group. We lived in very comfortable conditions, excellent hearty meals for breakfast and dinner. Also in the house where we lived there is Internet. Upon arrival in Ust-Kamenogorsk, we were met at the airport and taken to the base in Ridder There was an opportunity for two days of ski touring and one day of cat skiing

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

A great experience for ski-touring enthusiasts

I had the privilege to spend a week ski-touring with Julia at the East Pole base near Ridder, and I highly recommend both the experience and Julia's organization of it. The snow is as deep and powdery as you can wish, and there is just the right density of trees in the surrounding fir and birch forests to have fun slaloming around them. East Pole was very comfortable, with excellent and abundant food. Enjoying a daily banya before dinner was also memorable.Two thumbs up !

Review of: 6-Day Kazakhstan Ridder Camp Ski Private Guided Tour and Adventure

Great ski tour experience in just 1 hour from Almaty city center

Thank you guys for this amazing trip! The tour was organized well and safe. Great choice of location that suitable for both beginners and advanced riders.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Ski tour in Almaty

Thank you Max for a great short hike! A great opportunity to be in the most beautiful places and return to civilization in just a few hours)) It is very expensive! If you are in Almaty for a couple of days on business or skiing on prepared slopes at a local ski resort, be sure to include ski touring in your program! Skimo is closer than it seems)

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Safe and beatiful

Max and Yulya are nice people who take care about all members of their group. Safety is first priority for them. We had a beautiful day route with a great views. Very good communication and organization. Also they helped me with equipment rent. Thanks a lot!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Great day in the mountains

It was one of mine first guided skitour. So the crew of frozen rocks was very supportive and provided tons of nessesary information before the trip. I was lucky with weather and snow conditions: so we had couple of very good powder runs. Mountsins were amazing too. Thanks a lot for a great experience!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Good experience

I had very good experience! This guys know what they’re doing. It was perfect ski tour day, thanks!)

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Ski tour

I went on a one-day ski tour, there was a very interesting route, the guides had high professionalism. Provided avalanche equipment

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Highly professional mountain guides

We took a one-day skitour trip on 18th of December 2022. An overall experience was great. Especially, the fact that our group was split into two, according our hiking pace and skill. It allowed everyone to enjoy hiking and skiing. Despite the fact that there were no snowfalls in two weeks, Maxim had in mind one hidden spot with good snow conditions. We made about 750 vertical meters in total, so the run was long enough to get tired and feel GOOD. In addition to picturesque landscape, the safety was the the highest level. Thanks to FrozenRocks team for organizing that day.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Adventures with the right tour company:guide

Our one week trip to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan was well organized, based on our time and interests. Max was our guide for the week , he did everything possible to make sure we are comfortable, and making the most of our tour. We saw some major attractions, did some adventures like hiking in Kolsay lakes. He knew the place and led us well. I highly recommend going on this tour with Max s Thank you for all the good times , Max.

Beautiful tour to Kolsay Lake and Canyons!

We had great experience 2 days tour to Kolsay Lake and Canyons with Max. 3 hrs drive from Almaty,with comfortable SUV and you are in place with Spectacular views of Kolsay lake, easy trekking routes guided by knowledgeable guide Max. (Great benefit of his fluent English) Good organisation of guest House and local food by host Jelduz. Second day we were astonished by valley of Canyons. Feels like another world on Earth.Ps. For new hikers like us, do choose proper shoe for long walks with good grip.

Unforgettable trip, top quality guide!!!

2-days tour in the Almaty canyons with Maxim. He is a top-level guide, helpful, respectful, providing a lot of very interesting information.He knows very, very well his region, shew me some breathtaking places, pointed animals I had not seen, and was able to reply to all my questions on history, geography, cultures etc.His professionalism is obvious and as a woman travelling alone, I felt very well with him: he respected my walking rythm (slow, with pauses, due to the heat), gave me advise on how to better breath, on food,…, and even helped me to find a taxi in a remote place.My only regret is not being able to go with him in high mountains areas: he is clearly passionated by climbing, hiking and skiing, and his comments are so interesting, and his passion so contagious!I preciously keep his contact details for a futur trip to Kazakhstan, and warmly recommend him to anyone wishing an unforgettable trip near Almaty!Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all these memories Maxim!

Great time, well-run trip with a pro guide

Had a fun time on this trip. Max kept everything running smoothly. He knows his way around the park and showed us some cool stuff. Thanks, Max!

Review of: Altyn Emel. Singing dune and Aktau mountains 2 days tour

Amazing custom tour !

We had an amazing chance to explore beautiful kazakhstan with Maxime! He was very knowledgeable and accommodated all our needs for the trip that was very intense and customised, I highly recommend him!Thank you very much Maxime !

Review of: Altyn Emel. Singing dune and Aktau mountains 2 days tour

Great and fun

Very good organization four our seven days stay in the Tuyuk. The team is available , friendly and gave us good advices in these montains. We had great fun riding with them.

Ski in Ridder in KZ

One week of ski touring in Ridder area was unforgettable !Snow, sun and kindness of kazakh and russian people all along the week.Oriental and russian kitchen were another way to discover KZ : smoked fishes, beshbarmak (the national dish of KZ) ...Ridder is among nowhere but has to be discovered !Thank you again to Frozenrocks (Maxim Popov) and Oleg our guide !

Hard hike but fun

Great hike with my great tourguide Max. Dont miss it when you are in almighty Almaty. Max will provide you with everything you need!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Perfect team to arrange freeride/skitour program in Almaty

Very professional job done by the team with right to my level routes chosen.All safety measures were in place and btw guys are local snow gurus with 20+ years of experience. if needed you can rent all necessary equipment here skys, bipers etc.And and of cause amazing mountains with scenic views just in 30 min from Almaty.Deffenettly can recommend!!!

Great Skiing with Excellent Guides

I have done several 1-day backcountry tours with the Frozen Rocks team and each one has been excellent. Backcountry skiing outside of Almaty is challenging due to conditions and geography, so it is essential to have a good guide who knows the terrain and the snowpack. I highly recommend them for your outdoor adventures in Almaty and around Kazakhstan.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Trip to Almaty mountains with Max

Evey years I do 2 trips to the Almaty mountains and it is always beautiful. Max is an excellent guide. I recommend to all Europeans to visit Kazachstan and discoiver the beautiful scenery in this huge country. It is really worthwhile and totally undiscovered.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

A unique experience in the remote Kazakh backcountry

Our 7-day program with FrozenRocks was excellent! Our group, consisting of two skiers and two boarders, first did a one-day skitour trip near Almaty including an avalanche safety session. The day after we embarked on a 6 day tour in the Ketmen region, where we spent the nights in a comfortable mountain hut. During our stay in the hut we were taken great care of by the local couple, cooking for us and preparing the banya (russian sauna) after hard days of skitouring. Our guides Max and Sergey made sure we rode unique lines and always managed to find good powder lines, even though the snow conditions were quite hard. At some point Max even discoved a new descent using a drone, which saved us another hour of skinning back up to the hut. Communications via email upfront sometimes took a while because the team was out exploring the mountains, but never more than a few days. Julia, one of the founders, was very kind and clear in answering all of our questions. We absolutely recommend Frozenrocks for exploring the Kazakh backcountry!

Review of: Ketmen ridge skitour programme

Helpful off-piste instruction and scenic ski tour

The Frozen Rocks crew customized a three day ski with me for my trip to Almaty. Julya instructed me on off piste skiing and really helped me improve my overall skiing technique while Max took for a day trip ski tour in one of the gorges outside Almaty. There was 35 cm of fresh powder and the views and experience was amazing. Both Max and Julya were very pleasant and VERY instructive.

Excellent ski touring around Almaty

Thank you Max for some wonderfull days skiing around Almaty Best day ever skiing 35cm powder at ShymbulakI will never forget you ski lift instruction course ;-)

Excellent ski touring around Almaty

Did 2 separate 1 day trips with Frozen Rocks last year in the springtime. Stayed in Almaty city so I could enjoy the city in between tours. Excellent spots to freeride above Shymbulak and also above Cosmostation. Oleg was my guide and he knew the terrain very well and I had a great time. Would def be back for more touring!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Great off piste experience in less than an hour away from the city center

I've been skiing in Almaty before but never tried freeriding there. It turned out Almaty has an incredible off-piste opportunities. We took overview tour where FrozenRocks team shown us easy reachable ski resorts which provide lift-access to off-piste areas. Surprisingly, there was almost no people on these areas so all ski traces belonged to us. Besides that we took coupe of 1-day ski-tours. It was our first ski-tour experience and thanks to FrozenRocks it was amazing. They helped us with the equipment and guided us on how to actually walk. They know mountains really well and picked the routes appropriate to our walking and riding experience.All comminication was super easy, everything was perfectly organized. All guides are very nice people. Many thanks to you guys. We'll come back for sure :)

Awesome Off Piste Guided Snowboard

I did a brilliant one day trip with Frozenrocks team. Julia was so great arranging everything, it was very easy on email or whatsapp My trip was with Oleg, who was really good guy, he was calm, patient and helpful. Frozenrocks team knows these mountains and areas, some of them are ski patrol team when not guiding so you can trust them and they will take care of you They put everything into their experiences and care about the guests a lot. When booking be honest and clear about your experience level and what you want from a trip and they can design something to suit you . They do some really unique experiences and also want you to understand the culture and area aswell as having fun on the fresh tracks of courseGive them a try, i highly recommend.

Great people, great experience, beautiful mountains!

Are you in Almaty for a short period, maybe you just have a day free and you want to do some touring in the beautiful local mountains? Be prepared for a really special experience, touring is still a novelty in Central Asia, so you will be able to explore untouched slopes with ease. Get in touch with Yuliya at Frozen Rocks and she will efficiently and in perfect English organise your tour. My recommendation is that you ask for Oleg. He works in Shymbulak, a nearby skiing station as a piste-controller and knows the area inside out. You will have a great experience! Highly recommended.

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour

Great way to get to know the Central Asia Backcountry Scene!

Traveling to Central Asia to ski or ride? If you're looking for guides to get you backcountry - FrozenRocks is a great option. We stayed close to Almaty for a day tour (I was actually living there) but one day I'd like to get back for a longer trip. We would use them again. Their guides know the mountains well and they can set you up with someone who speaks English. Response from the office team is quick and terrific and the service was door to door. Obviously, as with any backcountry experience, you need to go avy aware and know your own risk tolerance but some of the best lines and greatest experiences are not off the chair lifts. Check out Frozen Rocks!

Review of: 1-day Backcountry Tour