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Where do you paraglide near Almaty?
Ushkonyr plateau at about 1,750 m is the main site, an hour west of the city. Oi-Qaragai is the wet-weather alternative, the Sunkar area does short city flights, and the Assy plateau is the high-altitude option in summer only.
In detail
Ushkonyr is the site. Launch at roughly 1,750 m, an hour west of Almaty on paved road with a short dirt section at the end, the Zailiysky Alatau wall on one side and steppe running north to the horizon on the other. Almost all local tandem operations happen here, so expect other wings in the air.
Oi-Qaragai is a serviced resort valley to the south-east — the alternative when Ushkonyr is blown out or wet, and the choice when a group wants a restaurant at the bottom.
Sunkar area, above the city at the mouth of the Medeu gorge, is where short flights combine with the zipline. Not an XC site: this is where the airport approach and the city are.
Assy plateau, east of Almaty above the Turgen gorge, is the high-altitude option and the closest thing here to Kyrgyzstan's Suusamyr. Mid-June to September only, long mountain road, snow-closed the rest of the year. We list it because it is the obvious next step for XC and we do not sell it as a fixed leg until we have flown and driven it enough to publish honest retrieval times.
The full table with access, season, retrieval and sourcing status is on the flying sites page.
Related
- When is the best time to paraglide in Almaty?
- Does travel insurance cover paragliding in Kazakhstan?
- How do I get to the launch from Almaty?
- What happens if the weather cancels my flight?
Tell us your dates
Send the dates you are in the country and we will come back with the slots that have the best chance of usable air. A person reads it and answers within one working day.
Or just get the season report
One email at the end of each season with the flyable days we actually logged, and one more if the SIV course opens. Nothing else, ever.