Kazakhstan

Shymbulak

12 / 100 Powder Score
Thin Weather Clear
Official site
Snow 48h
0cm
Next 72h
0cm
Snow 24h
0 cm
Next 24h
0 cm
Temperature
3°C
Max wind
7 km/h
Elevation
2,298–3,205 m
Across
4.8 km

Updated: 17 Oct 2026, 08:29

We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified. Snow report on the official site ↗

7-day outlook

Date Weather Snow (cm) Low / high (°C) Wind (km/h)
Sat 17 Oct Partly cloudy 0 0 to 9 7
Sun 18 Oct Partly cloudy 0 −1 to 5 7
Mon 19 Oct Clear 0 −1 to 7 5
Tue 20 Oct Fog 0 −1 to 8 8
Wed 21 Oct Cloudy 0 −1 to 6 14
Thu 22 Oct Partly cloudy 0 0 to 7 12
Fri 23 Oct Snow 1 −10 to 1 8

Score breakdown

Fresh (48h) 0/40
Forecast (24h) 0/25
Snow quality 0/20
Wind 10/10
Base 2/5

The five add up to the 100-point Powder Score: more fresh snow, more on the way and colder air all push it up. How we measure

Shymbulak, in Kazakhstan, runs from 2,298 m at the base to 3,205 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 4.8 km across, with 21 marked runs and 11 lifts (about 11 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 134 cm of snowfall a season, 1,892nd (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 3rd in Kazakhstan. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2023/24 (192 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2022/23 (81 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (27 and 20 cm on average).

Runs and lifts

Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Marked runs
21
Run length
11km
Lifts
11
Vertical
907m
Top 3,205 m · base 2,298 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediateOther Lift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.Lifts that run far beyond the ski area are cut at the edge of the map.
Run map

Drag to move around, and use + and − to zoom. On a phone, swipe to move and pinch to zoom in further.

Slope shape, difficulty and lift types

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map1.6 km
Steepest pitch24°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs12.1°

Which way the slopes face

North 33%
East 22%
South 2%
West 44%

55% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east; plenty of the terrain faces the sun as well, so the lean is modest.

By difficulty

Novice 3 · 0.5 km
Easy 7 · 3 km
Intermediate 9 · 7.3 km
Advanced 1 · 0.2 km
Other 1 · 0.1 km

Lift types

  • Magic carpet4
  • T-bar2
  • Chairlift2
  • Mixed gondola/chair2
  • Gondola1

See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗

Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.

Live cameras

This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.

Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.

Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com

How much snow it gets

Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Seasonal snowfall
134cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
81cm
The middle winter of the 12: 137 cm. The best: 192 cm.
World rank
1892
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
3
of 5 in Kazakhstan
Elevation rank
1
Highest to lowest, of 5 in Kazakhstan. The centre point sits at 2,626 m, 1,914 m above the national median.

Compared with what is nearby

Within 50 km in a straight line. Ski areas in the same weather-model cell (about 30 km across) get the same figure.

Ski areaDistanceSeasonal snowfallWorld rank
Oi-Qaragai12.0 km133 cm1909

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

Month by month, the most snow falls in March. March brings as much as January, or more. In amount, March brings 56 cm, about the same as the median of 49 cm.

27cm
Dec
20cm
Jan
31cm
Feb
56cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 134 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2022/23 with 81 cm; the biggest was 2023/24 with 192 cm (2.4 times as much). For 40% of the 5 ski areas in Kazakhstan, the leanest winter was the same 2022/23.

155
122
141
152
86
92
132
168
81
192
114
177
14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26

Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.

Map

The weather map, and where it sits among nearby ski areas.

Official piste map ↗

More places to look

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