In reply to 2cold_veins:
Hi Michal,
I spent 7 weeks on the North Inylchek Glacier in 2017. I climbed Khan Tengri, Byankol and turned around close to the summit of peak Karly Tau. We were there in the normal summer season from mid July until the end of August. If you have any specific questions about the area let me know and I can do my best to answer them. In the meantime heres some general info that might be useful to you...
We used Kyrgyzstan based Tien Sain Travel for all our logistics and there were great so I would highly recommend them. Email Vladimir (travel@tien-shan.com) and he should be able to help you. He doesn't speak a word of english but uses a very professional translator to communicate over email.
This logistical support involved getting helicoptered into BC which is realistically the only way to go. Approaching on foot from the road head would involve trekking over about 80 km of loose glacial moraine which would be horrendous so its not recommended. There is also a glacial lake that forms on the north fork of the Inylchek which can make it impossible to pass on foot.
On the topic of helicopters, I have been told but another climber who went the year after me, that the Kyrgyz no longer have any working helicopters. Crashes seems to happen fairly regularly and when we were there in 2017 they only had two working aircraft left, so this seems entirely believable to me! I suspect that this won't be too much of a problem though as they will charter in aircraft from Kazakstan to get you to BC if necessary.
I could spend ages explaining all the finer details of the area for you here, but I think before doing that it would be wise for you to consider carefully your desire to climb here in winter. While I personally enjoy expeditions outside of the 'classic' season, I don't think its a good place for this. I think all the locals would equally advise against it and may not even be able to offer you any logistical support which would make getting there essentially impossible.
In a nutshell the main reason for this is avalanche risk. This part of Kyrgyzstan (or technically Kazakstan for Marble Wall) is located further from any ocean than pretty much anywhere on the planet. As such it basically has a 'super continental' snow pack. Through the winter it will be very cold, typically snows a lot with little temperature fluctuation to stabilise the snow pack. So it's extremely dangerous and from a climbing perspective would make things physically very hard going in soft unstable snow.
Because of the extremely high avalanche risk local operators tend to stay well away from the higher mountains in winter, instead heli-skiing elsewhere at lower elevations (Kyrgyzstan has tons of mountains so plenty of other options to chose from). It's worth pointing out that the continental snow pack still presents very significant avalanche risks even in the relatively smaller mountains so it is wise to go with an experienced local operator and even still is somewhat risky business.
Anyway I hope this give you some food for thought and if you have any other specific questions feel free to ask and Ill do my best to help you out.
Stay safe,
Scott
