Ile-Alatau National Park and Wild Apple Forests

The Ile-Alatau National Park covers the mountain ridges immediately south of Almaty, beginning where the city's suburbs end and rising through birch and spruce forests to the permanent snowfields of the Zailiysky Alatau range. The park contains the remnants of what was once a much larger wild apple forest — the genetic ancestor of all cultivated apples worldwide, now reduced to isolated groves by development and overgrazing.

Walking into the lower gorges of the park is straightforward from the city: the Bolshaya Almatinka River valley gives access to the foothill forests, and the main gorge road continues up to the Medeu ice rink, Shymbulak ski resort, and ultimately the high mountain passes. The park has marked hiking trails at several levels of difficulty, from short gorge walks to multi-day routes crossing into Kyrgyzstan. Entry to the park requires a fee payable at the main checkpoints. Spring is when the wild apple trees bloom; autumn, when the fruit is on the trees and the birch forests turn gold, is equally beautiful.

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A story
All domestic apples — Granny Smiths, Fujis, Galas, every variety you find in a supermarket — descend from a single wild species, Malus sieversii, which still grows in the mountains around Almaty. The Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov identified this in the 1920s and spent years documenting the extraordinary genetic diversity of the wild orchards. Almaty's original name, Alma-Ata, means "Father of Apples" in Kazakh — the city was named for these forests long before anyone understood their global importance.