When is ski season in Kazakhstan?

Roughly late November or December to March or April. In 2025/26 Shymbulak opened technically on 26 November and officially on 6 December, and Oi-Qaragai on 13 December. Altai Alps winter 2026/27 price lists start on 15 November 2026.

How late can I ski at Shymbulak?

The Ministry of Tourism said in March 2026 that the season usually runs to about mid-April, and the resort publishes the exact date itself. In 2017 it was extended to 3 May.

Which resort has the longest snow cover?

In ERA5-Land, Shymbulak has the most: a median of 199 days with 30+ cm of snow. Tabagan has the least, 123 days. These are grid-cell estimates, not measurements on the slope.

Which resort varies most from year to year?

Altai Alps: 63 to 166 days with 30+ cm over nine seasons. Shymbulak ranges from 155 to 220.

When do people search for ski resorts?

“шымбулак” peaks in December at 22,200 and “ой карагай” in January at 12,100. “алтайские альпы” holds 5,400 from November to January.

Kazakhstan ski season: how long it lasts, by resort

Stated ski seasons in Kazakhstan run from 102 to 137 days, while climate data puts 30+ cm of snow in the grid cell at 123 to 199 days. Resort dates are patchy and the grid is coarse.

Skiing in Kazakhstan runs longer than a Christmas break but shorter than the snow data suggests. By stated dates the season lasts from 102 days at Oi-Qaragai to 137 at Altai Alps, with Shymbulak at about 130. Climate reanalysis shows 30+ cm of snow for 123 to 199 days, though it measures a grid cell, not a slope.

Stated season, days (from the dates in the resort table)

Shymbulak 130 days
Altai Alps 137 days
Ak-Bulak 111 days
Oi-Qaragai 102 days

Calculated from resort and ministry dates

When can you ski in Kazakhstan? What resorts say

If you are booking from abroad, start here. There is no single register of dates, so this is everything we found with a date and a source. Chart days are counted as follows: Shymbulak 6 December to 15 April, Oi-Qaragai 13 December to 25 March, Ak-Bulak 1 December to 22 March, Altai Alps by price list from 15 November to 31 March.

Resort	Stated start	Source	Stated end	Source
Shymbulak	26 Nov 2025 technical, 6 Dec 2025 official	Bes.media, Forbes.kz	usually until about mid-April	Ministry of Tourism via Tengrinews, 17 Mar 2026
Oi-Qaragai	13 Dec 2025	Forbes.kz	usually about 25 March; in 2026 provisionally to early April	Ministry of Tourism via Tengrinews, 17 Mar 2026
Ak-Bulak	early December, no year given	Skiresort.com	22 Mar 2026	Ministry of Tourism via Tengrinews, 17 Mar 2026
Tabagan	not found	—	not found	—
Altai Alps	6 Dec 2025, regional season opening; 2026/27 price list from 15 Nov 2026	East Kazakhstan akimat; resort site	usually to mid-April; 2026/27 price list to 31 Mar 2027	Tengrinews, 8 Jan 2026; resort site

Counting Shymbulak from the technical opening on 26 November gives 140 days. Counting Altai Alps from the 6 December opening to mid-April gives 130. Stated length moves by 7–10 days depending on where you draw the lines.

Illustration Engraving: a ski slope above a mountain resort across the season, deep midwinter snow on the left, spring patches of bare ground and melting snow on the right, a chairlift crossing

Snow and frost over nine winters

For each resort we counted days with a mean temperature below zero and days with snow depth of 10 and 30 cm across nine seasons, 2011/12 to 2019/20.

Days with 30+ cm of snow in the ERA5-Land cell, per season, median 2011/12–2019/20

Shymbulak 199 days
Oi-Qaragai 155 days
Ak-Bulak 151 days
Altai Alps 143 days
Tabagan 123 days

Open-Meteo Archive, ERA5-Land

Resort	Grid cell, km from point	Grid elevation, m	Stated elevation, m	Frost days: median (min–max)	Days with 30+ cm of snow: median (min–max)	Days with 10+ cm: median
Shymbulak	13	2,290	2260–3200	166 (149–180)	199 (155–220)	230
Oi-Qaragai	5	1,773	1820–2140	144 (117–151)	155 (129–184)	186
Ak-Bulak	4	1,540	1632–2664	131 (117–147)	151 (133–181)	182
Tabagan	8	1,521	—	137 (115–148)	123 (89–159)	168
Altai Alps	5	655	640–1006	143 (129–164)	143 (63–166)	158

Shymbulak leads in the model as well, with 166 frost days and 199 snow days. Altai Alps, at a grid elevation of 655 m, has 143 frost days, about the same as Oi-Qaragai at 1,773 m. Altai Alps is also the least steady: 63 days of 30+ cm snow in 2013/14 and 166 in 2012/13.

Month by month: temperature and snow in the grid cell

Mean temperature and mean snow depth for 2011–2020. The model has snow in November at all five resorts, while stated openings fall in late November and December.

Resort	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr
Shymbulak	-6.3 °C, 44.9 cm	-9.0 °C, 75.2 cm	-10.2 °C, 87.2 cm	-8.9 °C, 103 cm	-3.3 °C, 110.1 cm	1.5 °C, 97.7 cm
Oi-Qaragai	-4.1 °C, 28.1 cm	-6.6 °C, 55.8 cm	-7.6 °C, 67.3 cm	-6.3 °C, 82.8 cm	-0.4 °C, 88.5 cm	4.3 °C, 60.3 cm
Ak-Bulak	-2.9 °C, 25.6 cm	-6.6 °C, 56.2 cm	-7.8 °C, 71.8 cm	-6.2 °C, 89.3 cm	0.4 °C, 90.4 cm	6.0 °C, 50.7 cm
Tabagan	-3.5 °C, 17.1 cm	-6.6 °C, 39 cm	-7.5 °C, 50.5 cm	-6.0 °C, 65.3 cm	0.3 °C, 63.4 cm	5.6 °C, 25.8 cm
Altai Alps	-6.5 °C, 24 cm	-11.2 °C, 51.7 cm	-13.6 °C, 67.9 cm	-11.9 °C, 77.7 cm	-3.6 °C, 71.3 cm	5.8 °C, 21.6 cm

Where stated dates and climate disagree

Snow of 30+ cm outlasts the stated season at every resort with dates. The gap is widest at Shymbulak, 199 against 130, and narrowest at Altai Alps, 143 against 137.

These data do not explain the gap. A long model snow season does not mean a slope has that much snow: a cell averages the terrain, and lifts and piste work are invisible to it.

Not verified yet What is incomplete. We did not find the 2025/26 opening date for Ak-Bulak; Skiresort.com says only “early December”. No 2026 closing date for Shymbulak or Oi-Qaragai appears in published reports. We found no dates at all for Tabagan. Resorts publish no snow logs that we could open. Other areas, such as Kaskasu and Ridder, are not covered.

When people search for ski resorts

“шымбулак” rises from November and reaches 22,200 in December, then falls to 6,600 in April. “ой карагай” and “алтайские альпы” behave similarly.

Query "шымбулак", Kazakhstan, per month

18,100 Jan 12,100 Feb 8,100 Mar 6,600 Apr 8,100 May 8,100 Jun 8,100 Jul 12,100 Aug 12,100 Sep 9,900 Oct 14,800 Nov 22,200 Dec

Ubersuggest, 5 Nov 2026

In June and July the Shymbulak query stays at 8,100 a month, and in August it is already 12,100, so demand does not work as a measure of the ski season. More on each resort: Shymbulak, Oi-Qaragai, Ak-Bulak, Tabagan and Altai Alps.

Method and limits

Climate comes from ERA5-Land through the Open-Meteo Archive, 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2020, nine full seasons. Temperature is the daily mean; snow is daily mean depth from hourly values. Data was retrieved on 5 November 2026. Demand comes from Ubersuggest on the same day.

The grid is coarse. The cell centre lies 4–13 km from each resort point. Grid elevation is 1,540 m at Ak-Bulak and 2,290 m at Shymbulak, against a stated 2,260–3,200 m for Shymbulak and 1,632–2,664 m for Ak-Bulak. Slopes above and below the cell live in a different climate. We did not check reanalysis snow against ground observations, and it may run high in the mountains. Compare resorts with each other, and do not read these as operating days.

Snowmaking is not in the model, though resorts use it. Seasons from 2020 to 2026 are not included.

For journalists and bloggers: how to cite it

Safe wording: “By stated dates the Shymbulak season lasts about 130 days, while ERA5-Land for 2011–2020 shows 30+ cm of snow for about 199 days in the grid cell (calculated by charyn.kz, November 2026).” Avoid “Shymbulak has enough snow for 199 days of skiing”.

Planning for early December or late March? Leave a margin and confirm with the resort.