The lower fall
5 to 6 m, with a viewing platform.
Alfira Khissamutdin — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Игорь Улитин — CC BY-SA 4.0 · ElenaLitera — CC BY-SA 4.0 · ElenaLitera — CC BY-SA 4.0 · ElenaLitera — CC BY-SA 4.0
Ayusai Waterfall is a chain of small cascades on the Ayusai, a 7 km stream joining the Big Almatinka from the left in Ile-Alatau National Park, on Almaty's southern edge. The lower fall, 5 to 6 m high, lies about 700 m up the gorge from the visitor centre, with a 3 m step just above; the upper fall, the tallest, drops about 10 m. Ayusai is Kazakh for bear ravine, after its Tian Shan brown bears; snow leopards were recorded here in 1970-1990, and the park posted a video of one in January 2026. The timber visitor centre, by a Singaporean architect, opened at the gorge mouth in 2021; below the mouth, the Ayusai mudflow dam, over 41 m high, was completed in 2023 to shield the city. A three-bear sculpture marks the trailhead; the path runs through sunny glades and conifers into a narrow canyon. The lower fall has a viewing platform and a spring; the second takes a scramble over rocks, and the 1.9 km path to the upper fall, with some 400 m of ascent, has been open only in summer, on zoologists' advice. The centre is on the Big Almaty Lake road, 12.5 km by road from the Al-Farabi and Navoi junction; as the crow flies, the falls are 18 km south of central Almaty's Ascension Cathedral and 6 km north-west of the lake. Allow an hour there and back for the first two falls, two to four for the upper one, and come early on a weekday: weekends bring some 500 visitors a day.
5 to 6 m, with a viewing platform.
The tallest, about 10 m, on a summer path.
A sculpture at the trailhead.
Ayusai gorge, above the visitor centre on the Big Almaty Lake road, on Almaty's southern edge
It is paid cashless at the park checkpoint, by QR code with a banking app such as Kaspi: 649 tenge per person a day in 2026 and about 1,300 tenge per car, at rates tied to an official index that changes each year. Without a Kazakhstani banking app, ask at the checkpoint or check whether your tour includes the fee, as not all do.
It is unwise: after a 2024 rockfall inspection, the park and the state mudflow-protection service recommended warning signs, slope netting and a ban on bathing under the fall. Keep to the viewing platform rather than wading the river or nearing slippery edges, stay off the banks when rain swells it, as the park may then close gorges for mudflow danger, and check for ticks in spring and early summer, since Almaty's surroundings are endemic for tick-borne encephalitis.