A trip from Karaganda to Shankoz mountains.

“Sweetness shudders through the land
as if, freed from the heat,
nature’d scooped spring waters in her hand
and splashed her burning feet”

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev. “Summer evening”.

A trip from Karaganda to Almaty.

The Shankoz mountains are located in the northwest of the Karkaraly mountain range in the Karkaraly district of the Karaganda region in the territory of the Karkaraly natural park. The Shankoz Mountains stretch from north-east to south-west for 21 kilometers, with the largest width, in the central part, of 9.7 kilometers.
The absolute height of the mountains is Mount Shankoz 1360 meters above sea level, located in the eastern part. On the eastern side, the mountains are bounded by the seasonal Kendar River, in the northeastern part by the Alexander Stream.
From the north-west, the border of the mountains is bitterly salty and salty lakes - Aschykol, Zhartas, Shuykyrkol, Zhanabet. In the northern part of the mountains is the Karaganda - Karkaralinsk highway. In the south, the mountains border a small Koktobe massif with a dominant height of 1254 meters above sea level and a wide valley of the Zharly river.
The hydrography of the mountains is not significant, the mountains are dry, only in April and mostly in May, melting snow forms streams that belong to the basin of the Zharly and Kendar rivers and north-western salt lakes.
The Shankoz Mountains are characterized by a mattress-like relief composed of individual blocks. The outcrops of granites form rocky mountains in the relief, steeply rising above the vast, slightly hilly steppe. As a result of erosion, the rocks acquired bizarre shapes - niches, towers, arches, awnings, etc.
A characteristic feature of the northern end of the mountains are small basin-shaped lakes up to 71 meters (Lake Moldir) in length, in granite depressions on rocky hills. In the northern part of the Shankoz Mountains, up to 50 lakes are located among the granite rocks.
Coarse granites are painted in light gray or pinkish colors. Granite domes are divided by cup-shaped hollows. The predominant rocks in the mountains are granites and granodiorites. The ridges of the ridge consist of high rocky ridges, which, intermittently intermittently, extend for kilometers.
Mountains are represented in abundance by picturesque rocky outcrops decorated with pine trees. In the central part of the mountain, narrow gorges are cut, pine, pine-birch forests, as well as shrubs and lichens grow on the soils of the massif.

Authority and photos
Alexander Petrov.