Desert north of Taraz?? It's steppe.
Not sure what you mean by 'limited to the distance from Almaty' - if you mean you have 8 days to leave Almaty and return then you don't really have much time to play with.
I have not done a huge amount of off-roading in Kazakhstan, but I would recommend the Mongolia approach; just map out some tracks on Google Earth and stick them in a GPS.
My favourite off-roading was in the far south-west, the region of Mangystau. The Ustyurt National Reserve has some truly spectacular scenery.
One trip I always wanted to make, but have not done yet, is to drive across the desert / steppe from Beyneu, past the northern shore of the South Aral Sea, then on to the Kokaral Dam (which I have visited - nice to see the rejuvenated North Aral Sea).
If you like risk-taking, there is also the steppe area around Sary-Shagan, the old Soviet anti-satellite missile station. On Google Earth there used to be pictures of interesting looking abandoned hardware, even some spacejunk from memory, but it's officially off-limits.
Walter Colebatch crossed the north of Kazakhstan off-road (and probably more), but I would stick to the south as it is more interesting and more scenic.
EO
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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.
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