Well...what can I say this is not a conventional trip. Where else do you get the chance to explore regions of this planet where nobody else has ever been before? And where do you get the chance to climb unclimbed mountains? Actually, this latter one was the main reason why I decided to join this trip. Anyway, let's start from the start...
The destination of this expedition is Kyrgyzstan and the best way (probably the only way from Europe) is to get there is by plane. The airport of the capital Bishkek is actually better than what I would expect it to be. For some strange reason most of the flights there land in the night, and so we do. We land around 3:00 am with 4 hours jet lag (at least for me)...very very tired. We are carried by minibus directly to the hotel and there we go directly to bed. "Next day" (is not actually next day because is the same day) we go a bit around Bishkek and go to visit the headquarter of ITMC, the company with which we'll travel around this wonderful country. The excitement starts growing once we get to see all the equipment that we'll take with us. During the first day we also have the chance to know each other. It's a group of 9 people plus 3 mountain guides, 2 porters a cook and the truck drivers (I won't give people names in this post...). From radiologist to astrophisycist the group seem to be quite varied, and I like it.
Morning after the expedition officially starts and one of the two trucks comes to pick us up at the hotel.
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| Our truck...one of them |
There is also a second truck, similar to this one, with all the common equipment like tents and food. These vehicles look quite old, but tough at the same time.
First travel day we stay on "decent" but nothing exciting happens. At one of the stops we get to taste the cheese balls, which are apparently very popular in this country. They are basically balls of cheese dried out in the sun, quite tasty actually! Before dinner we go and investigate a possible new area for rock climbing. It looks interesting, but the guides decide not to come back here.
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| Typical yurts |
Second day we drive through Naryn to pick up the last supplies and then head off to the more remote areas. Today we have to cross a dangerous bridge. Or at least, they say the bridge was dangerous last year. This year it looks better than it did last year and it seems the crossing should be possible without any problem. Before crossing the bridge many of us get off the truck to take some pictures or just walk a little bit. The truck starts crossing the river and the bridge holds. But as soon as the bridge is over the side of the road created after the bridge collapses on one side and the truck tilts over.....We can't believe it. I can't believe it. I just look at this huge truck tilting and sliding down the bridge. A moment later we realize...shit there are still three people and the driver in it!!!
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| The bridge...which from here does not look so bad |
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| The truck tilted over |
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| That was scary... |
Everyone starts running towards the tilted truck. One of the side windows is promptly smashed and the three people inside the truck get out. The driver got out on his own straight after the accident. It seems everyone is fine, but suddenly one almost faints due to sharp and deep cuts in his back. The doctor of the expedition was also in the truck, but luckily he did not suffer from any injury at all and he immediately starts helping the injured. He manages to stop the blood coming out and to put him into a relatively comfortable condition. The third person in the bus, one of the alpine guides, has hit his head and looks dizzy for the rest of the day...but will recover from next morning. For that evening we decide to camp next to the bridge and the next morning an helicopter is summoned to rescue the injured guy. The fact that the helicopter turns up only the morning after does not give me that much confidence...but they say that in case of life threatening situations it would come immediately.
I have to say that this accident, in my opinion, has bonded the group very quickly and created a good team spirit.
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| River crossing the day after...clearly avoiding the bridge |
The show must go on someone said once, and so we do. We leave on the place some of the superfluous gear and put everything in the other truck. There were no seats in the other truck so we have to seat on our bags. Not so uncomfortable, but surely not comfortable. The morning after however, the driver decides to cross the river directly in the water, without using the bridge (wise man). Despite the water being rather deep he manages and we can continue our journey towards base camp. To be completely honest, in the moment I saw the truck tilting over I thought the trip was finished...
A couple of hours after having left the damned bridge we have to cross another river, this time with no bridge on it. And, to make things even worse, we see a truck stuck in the middle of the river half covered in water.
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| That does not look very promising... |
We know that this truck is also from ITMC and it got stuck last week when coming back from the mountains. You can imagine that after what happened yesterday nobody wants to cross the river on the bus. Some locals offer to carry some of us over by horse but some others stay on the truck. The water level is much lower than last week when the other truck got stuck, and the river crossing goes on without problems.
From now on we are in the classic middle of nowhere. No more roads, nobody around except a couple of families living in the yurts and only savage nature, until eye can see. The driving becomes much slower because the terrain is now so uneven. Basically we are driving up a river bed.
We stop a few times to look at the maps, very old ones from the military, that are barely sufficient to have an idea of where we are. The three mountain guides have been in this country for 15 times already, so they are able to use them in a remarkably good way. After some more uneven and rather exciting driving we finally reach the bottom of the valley in which we want to climb and set up base camp. The valley name is Kosh-Kura-Tash, and so is also the name of the river. All the mountains in this valley have no name, partly because they have never been climbed and partly because the locals are not interested in giving them a name. But we're going to climb them and, after that, name them...how exciting can that be? This valley and this peaks and in the At-Bashi mountain range, that takes the name from the only village that lies close to it, on the other side compared to where we are. Part of this range has already been explored, but not entirely.
The day goes on with setting up base camp and with some of us getting washed in the "God damned how bloody cold it is!" river. The location of this base camp is really amazing, around 3500m totally immersed in the wilderness. Close to the intersection of two rivers and two valley, almost totally surrounded by big mountains.
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| Looking at the maps and using GPS...not so easy with no road signs and stuff |
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| Base camp |
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| Base camp and the common tent |
The following morning we set off with relatively light rucksack to go and explore the higher parts of this valley and to find a suitable place for advanced base camp (ABC). Valley is long and altitude gain is rather slow. After almost two hours of really slow walk we finally find a place that is suitable for ABC. It's a flat area close to a small stream directly on the moraines. Actually, the entire high part of the valley is covered by moraines. The height of ABC is almost 4000m. We leave our climbing gear in place...nobody will really come and steal it...and start flattening out the tents spots. We get the first sight of all the summits that we are going to climb, or at least to attempt, in the following days. How can you resist and not be willing to climb them all right now :)? But OK, for today we go back to base camp and have a relaxing afternoon. The plan for the next days is to stay up to a maximum of 5 nights at ABC and to climb everyday a different peak.
In the morning the rucksacks are MUCH heavier than yesterday and off we go to set up ABC. Unfortunately the weather is not that good and the setting up of the tents has to be done rather quickly and then we have to wait until the rain/hale/snow stops. When it does, some of us decide to go out for a short look around and exploration. There are in fact some parts of the valley that cannot be seen entirely from the ABC. I take this also as a test for acclimatization and I on purpose push a bit the pace of the walk. Clearly without a huge rucksack on the shoulders is much easier. I don't get any problem any problem with oxygen and breathing, and that's good. But unfortunately the clouds are still having their fun around the valley and the view is not fully open. Still, better walking around a bit rather than sitting in the tent the whole time. In the evening we try the "cooking arrangement" that has been decided for this year. At base camp the cook is cooking something for us in the morning and it is then brought up to us to ABC in the early afternoon. Then, we just have to warm it up with a stove. To be honest, I feel a bit "spoiled". You know, we are here in a totally remote place, climbing unclimbed peaks and we are basically been served dinner every evening. Sure, it makes thing much more comfortable, but I was expecting to cook everything ourselves. And actually, one of us (which was also there in the previous here expedition) has taken his own food in the freeze dry bags. He defines himself as a fussy eater and in the previous expedition has lost a lot of weight for not eating that much. So this year he thought about taking his own food. OK, I'm not going to complain about this food arrangement, as this makes things easier...but I just think it would have been more fun to cook our own food at least while camping at ABC.
You know what...this post is getting rather long. I think I'm going to split it into three parts. One up to here for the approach to the mountaineering part of the trip, a second section for the mountaineering part and a third section for the rock climbing part. So here this part ends...and in the next few days I'll upload the next ones.
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