Altyn-Emel and the Singing Dune by motorcycle

By Amir · SilkOffRoad Motorcycle Tours

Suzuki DR650SE motorcycles parked under the Singing Dune, Altyn-Emel National Park, Kazakhstan

Altyn-Emel is a national park the size of a small country, four hours from Almaty, with almost nobody in it. There is a sand dune that hums, mountains striped like a layer cake, a willow that was already old when Columbus sailed, and long dirt roads between them with nothing on either side but steppe. It is one of our favourite days on a bike. It is also a place where you can get into trouble, so here is what we tell our riders.

First stop: the pass, in Basshi

You cannot simply ride in. The park is entered through the village of Basshi, and that is where the park office is. You buy your pass there, and you show it at the checkpoints inside. No pass, no park, and the rangers do check.

Basshi is also where you sleep. There are guesthouses run by local families, and after a day in the dust a homemade dinner there is worth more than any restaurant in Almaty.

The Singing Dune

The dune stands alone on the plain, about 150 metres high and three kilometres long, with the Ili River behind it. You park at the foot, take your boots off if you are wise, and climb the ridge. It takes about half an hour and feels like two, because for every step up you slide half a step back.

The singing is real. When the sand is dry and you slide down the steep side, the whole dune starts to hum under you, a low note like a distant aircraft. Some days it sings and some days it sulks. There are no refunds either way.

Ride only on the allowed roads

This matters more than anything else on this page. Altyn-Emel is a nature park, not an enduro playground. Rare animals live here, kulans and goitered gazelles among them, and the ground itself is fragile: one set of tyre tracks across the steppe stays visible for years.

So you ride on the marked park roads and nowhere else. No shortcuts across the plain, no climbing the dune on the bike, no "just a quick photo over there". The roads are dirt and gravel and they are fun enough. The rangers are strict about it, and they are right to be.

Take your rubbish out with you

There are no bins at the far end of a desert road and nobody comes to empty them. Whatever you bring in, you carry out: bottles, wrappers, cable ties, the lot. If you have room for a full water bottle on the way in, you have room for an empty one on the way out.

Rider on a motorcycle on a dirt road in Altyn-Emel National Park — Plenty of room. Stay on the road anyway.

The heat, and what to carry

In summer Altyn-Emel is very hot. There is no shade on the roads, no shop after Basshi, and long stretches with no phone signal. Before you go:

check the weather forecast, and think twice about July and August afternoons;
carry more water than seems sensible, then add a bottle;
download offline maps, and bring a compass that does not need a battery;
tell someone in Basshi where you are going and when you expect to be back.

A motorcycle jacket in forty degrees is its own kind of sauna. Start early, do the dune in the morning, and be drinking tea in the shade by mid-afternoon.

Not only the dune

Most visitors see the Singing Dune and go home. There is more.

The Aktau mountains are the colourful ones: hills banded in white, red, orange and green, the floor of an ancient sea turned on its side. They are a long dirt road from Basshi, and from a distance they look painted.

The old willow at Kosbastau is said to be seven hundred years old. Its trunk takes several people to reach around, and its branches have grown so heavy that they rest on the ground. There is a spring beside it and real shade, which by that point in the day you will value more than the history.

Getting there on a bike

Basshi is about 250 km from Almaty, on tarmac. Inside the park everything is dirt and gravel: the dune is roughly 50 km from the village and the Aktau mountains further still. The season is May to October, and May, September and early October are the comfortable months.

Altyn-Emel on our tours

We ride through Altyn-Emel on two tours.

The Almaty Adventure Loop is our most beginner-friendly ride: six days with four riding days, on a Suzuki DR650SE, with a ride leader in front and a support vehicle carrying the luggage. We spend the night in a family guesthouse in the park, ride to the Singing Dune and the old willow the next morning, and carry on to the hot springs at Chundzha, the Kolsai Lakes and Charyn Canyon. The pass, the route and the timing are taken care of. 2027 dates: 29 May – 3 June and 2–7 October.

Almaty Adventure Loop — itinerary and price

From Desert up to Glaciers starts the same way, with a night in Basshi, and when time and weather allow it takes in the Aktau mountains as well. Then it keeps going: across the border into Kyrgyzstan, along Issyk-Kul and up to Song-Kol. Ten days, two countries. 2027 date: 15–24 May.

From Desert up to Glaciers — itinerary and price