Altyn-Emel National Park
Home to the “Singing Dune”, which hums in the wind, and the striped Aktau mountains.
About
The park is a wide, dry landscape of steppe, hills and desert along the Ili river. Its best-known feature is the Singing Dune, a huge sand ridge about 150 metres high and 3 km long, which emits a low humming sound when the sand slides in dry weather.
Nearby, the Aktau mountains show bands of white, yellow, pink and red clay in the cliffs, like a painted wall, and the Katutau hills have their own colours. You can also see wild animals such as kulans, a wild ass, and many birds.
History
The area has been used by nomadic herders for centuries, and the Ili valley lay on routes between the steppe and the oases of Central Asia. The park was created in 1996 to protect its unusual desert and mountain landscapes and its wildlife, including the Kazakh population of the kulan. The Singing Dune is a barkhan formed by wind from fine sand, and the sound comes from the grains rubbing against each other as they avalanche down the slope. The Aktau mountains owe their stripes to layers of sediment laid down in a prehistoric lake and later exposed by erosion. The park also has many ancient petroglyphs and burial mounds, which show that people lived here from early times. Because the area is large and remote, a visit usually involves a guided day trip with a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and a fee for the park is charged at the entrance.