Shymbulak Opens Two New Lifts and Nearly 4 Kilometres of Beginner Terrain for the 2026-27 Season
If you have ever waited half an hour for a chairlift at Shymbulak on a Saturday in January, you already know the resort’s real problem. It is not the snow.
It is that the main lift system handles more than one million visits a year, and on peak days everyone crowds into the same handful of runs. Two new lifts open this winter to fix that.
Two Lifts in the Quiet Part of the Gorge
Shymbulak is adding two new lifts for the 2026-27 winter season. The S5 is a four-seat chairlift. The S6 is a surface drag lift.
Both sit in a less-developed sector of the Shymbulak gorge, separate from the main Medeu–Shymbulak cable car line. For the resort, that is new ground.
Construction is close to finished. Support towers for both lifts are already in place, and station assembly plus cable tensioning are in their closing phase.
Operator Almaty tau Management announced the project on October 20 and aimed for a first launch within about four weeks, targeting operation before the seasonal opening in mid-December 2026.
Who the New Trails Are For
Alongside the lifts, roughly 3.5 to 4 kilometres of new ski trails will open, designed for beginners and lower-intermediate skiers. Alexander Rudenko, a representative of Almaty tau Management, told Almaty.tv that the new routes are intended for riders with limited experience.
Shymbulak currently operates eight lifts serving around 20 kilometres of groomed pistes. The expansion adds capacity without overloading that existing network.
Expect the new beginner zone to divert traffic from the resort’s busier core runs, easing crowding on weekends and holidays. That helps beginners and stronger skiers alike.
For anyone booking an early-season trip, the practical change is simple. Shymbulak now has new lift-served beginner terrain opening this winter, not years in the future.
Ski pass sales for the 2026-27 season opened October 1, with early-bird discounts available through October 31.
The First Real Piece of the Almaty Mountain Cluster
This upgrade is the first concrete delivery of the Almaty Mountain Cluster plan, approved earlier in 2026.
The broader plan targets up to 30 new cable cars and 151 kilometres of linked ski trails by 2029, connecting Shymbulak with Oi-Qaragai and future sectors. Daily visitor capacity across the cluster is projected to rise from about 6,000 to 30,000.
Local officials estimate the full cluster could create around 15,000 jobs across instruction, rescue, hospitality and service roles.
The work has top-level backing. Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov placed the project under special control in April 2026, and preparatory work began on August 25 at Shymbulak, Butakovskoye gorge and Kimasar gorge.
In Butakovskoye, engineering-geological surveys and a temporary access road toward “Butakovka — 2000 m” are underway. In Kimasar gorge, a construction site has been prepared for a future base station.
The cluster is designed to integrate Shymbulak, Oi-Qaragai and future Kok-Zhaylau and Kumbel sectors into one connected system, with Medeu as a unified transport hub. The master plan also covers all-season use: winter skiing and snowboarding, plus summer trekking, mountain biking and ecological tourism.
The takeaway: Shymbulak’s crowding problem is finally getting a physical fix. Two lifts and nearly four kilometres of easy terrain open this winter, the first visible proof that the Almaty Mountain Cluster is being built rather than just planned. If you want the early-bird rate, book before October 31.