Skazka (Fairy-Tale) Canyon

A small but photogenic canyon of red-orange sandstone formations on the southern Issyk-Kul shore — easy 1-hour walk between sculptural rock spires.

Skazka (‘Fairy-Tale’) Canyon is a small but extraordinarily photogenic landscape of eroded red and orange Cretaceous sandstone formations rising sharply from the southern shore of Issyk-Kul Lake, between the villages of Tosor and Tamga. Unlike the more famous canyons of southern Utah, Skazka is small enough — about 1 sq km — to walk through completely in 1.5 hours, with sandstone fins, hoodoos, walls and bizarre wind-sculpted shapes including local imagination’s ‘Great Wall of China’, ‘Dragon’s Spine’, ‘Snake’ and ‘Castles’. The colours shift dramatically through the day; the canyon is at its most photogenic in late afternoon when the western sun lights the rock walls in deep orange against the blue lake visible in the distance. Easy trails wind through the canyon; one mildly exposed scramble leads to a panoramic viewpoint over the formations. The canyon makes a perfect 90-minute stop on the Cholpon-Ata-to-Karakol drive along the southern shore.