About
How we plan routes, run camps, pick vehicles, and keep a team safe a thousand kilometres from the nearest hospital.
Why this page exists
For a ten-day crossing through remote Kazakhstan, this is one of the most important pages on the website.
Most expedition companies will not put it in writing. We will. The pages that follow describe — concretely — the vehicles we use, the camps we run, the communications we depend on, what happens when something goes wrong, and who picks up the phone when it does. Nothing here is aspirational. It is what already exists, fleet by fleet, kit by kit, on every Dala Arba expedition.
01 — Routes
A primary line, a foul-weather alternate, and a contingency that exits the field early. Each route is field-walked by our lead guides in the same season the client will travel, with GPS tracks logged and refreshed annually.
River crossings, washed-out passes, and seasonal closures are reviewed within seven days of departure. If conditions shift mid-expedition, the alternate is already loaded on every vehicle's navigation device — we do not improvise on a map.
02 — Vehicles
Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country on earth and has almost none of it tarmacked. Our fleet exists for two reasons: redundancy (every expedition runs with a minimum of two vehicles) and the ability to self-recover from a stuck axle a hundred kilometres from the nearest village.
Primary · Guest vehicle
Comfortable jeeps prepared for off-road. 3 guests + driver-guide. A classic expedition platform for Central Asian conditions. Extended fuel range, low-range gearing and factory locking differentials give confident progress off-road. Depending on the route, a snorkel and extra preparation for water crossings are fitted.
Backup · Recovery
An equipped evacuation vehicle, prepared for heavy off-road.
Support · Logistics
Four-wheel-drive vehicles for technical supply throughout the expedition, used both on extremely broken tracks and on the highway. They carry tents, water, kitchen equipment, a generator, spare wheels and fuel. On days when we move between camps, the support vehicle goes ahead so the camp is always fully ready when guests arrive.
Every vehicle in the fleet carries a satellite tracker visible to our operations desk, a second spare tyre, a 30 m kinetic recovery rope, an air compressor, a high-lift jack, and twenty litres of water that no one is allowed to drink unless we are out of options.
03 — Camps
Our support vehicle leaves the previous site at first light. By the time guests reach the next camp, the sleeping yurts and tents are pitched, the bathroom block is in place, the dining table is set, and the kitchen tent has the stoves running.
At the fixed YurtaDa camps — Kargaly, Assy, Charyn, Altyn-Emel — there is a permanent kitchen, showers, bio-toilets, and autonomous power from a hybrid of solar panels and a diesel generator. Mobile camps mirror this kit on a smaller footprint.
04 — Communications
A Starlink Roam terminal travels with every long expedition and lives permanently at each YurtaDa base camp. It gives the team a stable broadband uplink for weather updates, evacuation coordination, and — for guests who want it — enough bandwidth to call home from the steppe.
Vehicles also carry Iridium satellite phones as the second tier. Two-way VHF radios link the lead and support vehicles when the convoy is split. Every guide has the operations desk in Almaty on speed dial through all three channels.
05 — Field kitchen
A dedicated field cook travels on every multi-day expedition. The kitchen module — twin-burner stoves, propane, a tandoor for bread, refrigeration, filtered water, sealed dry-stores — is set up fresh at each camp.
Menus are built around Kazakh and Central Asian staples (beshbarmak, plov, manti, kazy) supplemented with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, halal, and kosher options arranged in advance. Drinking water is filtered on site; bottled water is carried for the days a filter cannot keep up.
06 — Medical & safety
Every expedition carries two independent medical kits — one in the lead vehicle, one in the support truck — built to the Wilderness Medical Society standard. Both lead and support guides are Wilderness First Responder certified and re-trained every two years.
SAM splints, traction splint, tourniquets, haemostatic gauze, chest seals, cervical collar, full vacuum mattress.
Antibiotics, anti-anaphylactic kit (epinephrine), altitude meds (acetazolamide, dexamethasone), antiemetics, rehydration salts.
Pulse oximeter, blood-pressure cuff, glucometer, otoscope, digital thermometer. Tele-medicine link via Starlink to a contracted physician in Almaty.
Established evacuation protocols with regional partners (Almaty and Astana). All guests are required to hold travel insurance with medical evacuation cover; we verify before departure.
07 — Force majeure
We switch to the pre-loaded alternate route. If both are closed, we hold at the previous camp at our cost until conditions clear, or extract the expedition to the nearest town with hotels we have used before.
The support truck consolidates guests into the remaining vehicle. A relief vehicle is dispatched from the nearest hub (Almaty, Aktau, Semey, or Kyzylorda depending on region) within twenty-four hours.
The lead guide assesses with the on-call physician over Starlink or Iridium. If air evacuation is required, we coordinate through our regional evacuation partners; if road extraction is faster, the support vehicle drives to the nearest regional hospital while the lead vehicle holds the rest of the expedition at camp.
We monitor Foreign Office advisories and local government channels daily. Any expedition transiting a sensitive corridor (the Kyrgyz border, the Caspian oil regions, the Russian frontier in the Altai) has a contingency that exits the corridor within twelve hours.
08 — The team
A guest party of four to six on a ten-day route is supported in the field by a team of five — plus the operations desk in Almaty.
Lead
Drives the lead vehicle. Final call on weather, route, evacuation. First-response trained.
Support
Drives the second vehicle. Second medical responder, recovery specialist, translator for Kazakh / Russian.
Logistics
Drives the support truck ahead each day. Pitches camp, manages water, fuel, and waste-out.
Kitchen
Travels with the support truck. Three full meals a day plus tea, snacks, and bread baked on the steppe.
Local
Changes with the region of the route — an eagle hunter (berkutchi) in the Altai, a keeper of traditions in Mangystau, an expert in history and legends on the Aral. Joins the expedition for one to three days. Their role is to provide the context of the place — natural, cultural and practical — grounded in local experience and knowledge.
09 — Emergency contact
During every expedition our Almaty operations desk is on a rolling rota. Every guest party is given the direct numbers of the duty operations manager and the founders before departure, along with the next-of-kin protocol we hold on file.
If anything on this page raises a question — about a specific vehicle, route, or medical protocol — we would rather answer it before you book than after.
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