ࡱ> Z\[[ @bjbj 4Pΐΐ8$x!  $p"%!!2!s s s > s  s s s s H!0x!s &_D&s &s pbs Hd#!!x!& : Mt Belukha and a sting in the tail (head?) My first glimpse of the Siberian landscape came as the Aeroflot Tupolev aircraft noisily lowered its flaps and banked sharply in the faint glow of sunrise. I had expected to see nothing but trees and yes, there are one or two errrr..trillion of them! But there were also big towns and cities, roads and settlements, much more habitation than Id expected. Barnaul airport was a tiny affair and I was mentally soaked up how everything looked so Russian, so different from in the west. The buildings, cars, planes, people, clothing were all very Soviet. However, modernisation was apparent too and there were clearly some very wealthy people, posh shops, western goods, advertisements everywhere and beneath the harsh exterior, a buzz that things were on the turn. I had been asked to recce a trek for some groups going to the Russian Altai region and also to climb Mt. Belukha to see if it was suitable. Some quick research on the internet before I arrived had already convinced me that it was certainly not, but I was asked to have a go anyway. Mt. Belukha is the highest mountain in the Russian Altai and whilst not that high (4506m), is permanently covered in snow and ice year round and heavily glaciated. It lies in a remote part of what is an absolutely, incredibly large land-mass, on the border with Kazakhstan. Russia covers 11 times zones and once you are in Moscow, it is another 4 hour flight to get to Barnaul and I believe a 10 or 11 hour flight to get to Vladivostock. Basically it goes nearly way round the world! From Barnaul, its 5 hours to Gorno Altaisk, which is the capital of the Altai region. Here, in what is a dreadfully dull, drab, unattractive, badly planned, old Soviet-style town, is where you apply for a visa to get into the Altai region. The only reason for going there I reckon. The region is on the border between Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan and of course Russia and as such is considered politically sensitive so permission to enter is required. From Gorno Altaisk, another 12 hours in a marshrutka (minibus) takes you to the very end of the road, literally. The journey is fascinating, often beautiful and somehow lonely. As you gaze across the vast plains watching an eagle soaring above, you feel that with each mile you are going further into a very remote part of the world, which of course you are, but also that its a long way back home. It also strikes you how lucky you are to be here. This feeling is heightened when the army border control finally allows you in after stamping this, arguing about that, despairing that you dont speak Russian and generally doing their best to put a bad name to bureaucracy. Tyungur is the end of the road and at the time, feels like the end of the planet. Its a small collection of wooden buildings akin to an Alaskan town and inhabited by folk who look more Mongol than Russian and like to drink, a lot. They also like horses and are quite good at riding them, sober or otherwise! Amongst the small collection of wooden buildings are pigs, dogs and a couple of small shops and although you can buy a food processor and an oven, the variety of food they sell is pretty uninspiring. My comfortable base camp, Vysotnik arranged a couple of day horse trek with a guide. This was amazing actually. Im not a big (or even little) fan of horses, but ended up having a great time on my old nag. Im not sure the nag was as keen but the scenery was beautiful and weather good. My guide didnt speak any English and I didnt speak any Russian, but we seemed to communicate just fine anyway. We wild camped in flower-filled meadows with amazing views of Mt Belukha and the range in the distance and of course, there were a few trees to be seen. My next trip was a tough hiking trip, steep ground, long days and fortunately mostly good weather. Russians are a very, very tough breed. Their packs are seriously heavy because they dont think twice about carrying spare everything, they just get on with it. Our guide was a hairdresser who wore wellies to hike in. On our first day, she led us on a hike down the wrong valley and our horses, complete with our supplies, had gone up the correct valley ahead of us. As the rain poured down, the Russians lit a fire, as they do. They are masters of the art and can light a fire anywhere, anytime and always seem to have a saw chain, knife, matches and whatever else they need close to hand. As the fire roared, we ate salami, bread, nuts, cheese and anything else people had as their personal snacks. Now, the Russians are not instantly the friendliest of people. But scratch under this hard, expressionless exterior and you find the warmest, most hospitable people imaginable. They all gave up their personal supplies willingly and they ensured nobody went hungry. As darkness loomed, we hiked back to a hunting cabin we had passed earlier and slept, me minus sleeping bag, on a hard, cold bench. Welcome to Russia. We caught up with the horses the next day and continued our hike. Although our hikes were often 25km and mostly with a lot ascent, the next 6 days were truly amazing. Great views all around of hills, mountains, Mt. Belukha and did I mention that there were one or two trees? Near the end of the hike, I left the small group, or rather they left me at the tented Akkem base-camp, to go back down. I had a day to wait for the climbing party to arrive and so chilled, had a banya (sort of Turkish bath), washed some clothes and went on a day hike up the beautiful Yerlu valley. The next day, the executioners arrived. Lean, square-jawed, tall, weathered, hard as nails and quite, quite mad Russian guides arrived along with clients of various shapes, sizes, ages, abilities and experience. This is where the fun began. We loaded with our own personal food for the trip, our personal climbing kit, numerous ropes, stakes, screws, stoves, fuel etc. and at the end, our rucsacks were somewhat swollen. In true Russian style, we left for Tomskie Nochevskie (a place on the glacier where there is a very small mountain rescue hut and is sort of base-camp) at 14.30 ie somewhat late. It was a bit like, whats the rush? At 0045 the next day, having crossed dodgy rivers, visited a typical Russian church, taken a wrong turning on the glacier and fallen into a small crevasse (yes, we were unroped), I was on my knees. I was just about to throw the toys out, when I could see a small shed perched on some rocks, on the glacier. Welcome to Tomskie. Despite the numerous mice running around my head during the night, sleep was good. Waking to amazing views all around, chief Ruskie guide made us practice ice-stuff on some steep glacier bits with a view to streaming us into A and B teams. Some clients were clearly comfortable on the ice, others much less so and the decision was given to us over dinner. We were to leave at 5am. As communication was difficult, I had little idea of where the route would take us so went to sleep curious and excited. Waking to amazing views all around, again, we plodded up the glacier, un-roped and were faced with a 300m ice wall, called Delone Pass, which takes you into Kazakhstan. Fun!! 6 rope lengths of grade II/III and we were on top with more amazing views down into Kazakhstan. Now, we had come up a glacier, in the dark, unroped. We had walked up a glacier, admittedly devoid of crevasses, unroped. But, what was ahead didnt look that friendly really. My request to rope up was laughed at, again, and they were having none of it. Without further notice, they were off and I had (almost) no choice but to follow. It was hot, slushy, full of yawning crevasses and I wasnt happy. Trouble was, they were really fast and I couldnt keep up with them to moan at them any more, so I had (almost) no choice but to follow. We descended the 300m we had gained on the wall and then ascended a lot of metres the other side. Finally and after crossing sagging snow-bridge after sagging snow-bridge, we arrived at our camp beneath what I nicknamed the cirque of death, or in other words, our route up Belukha. I argued with the guides about not having roped-up but they just kept on saying that they knew where all the crevasses were and there was no problem. Yeah, right! Looking into the cirque, the route up looked desperate. Steep and avalanche-prone. I made a mental note that we need to be getting an alpine start tomorrow. At around 9.45am, sun blazing and snow melting, the crazy Ruskies finally decided it was time to go for the summit. Unroped, despite my protestations, we soloed up some very steep ground to beneath a bergshrund where approximately 8 pitches of grade III awaited. Hiding underneath the bergshrund, sluff after sluff attempted to bury the belay as the guide fixed ropes. What on earth am I doing here, quickly turned into what the F**K am I doing here! when a small avalanche just missed us to the side. It seemed I couldnt go up or down without putting myself in a lot of danger so I decided that I might as well die attempting the summit. A couple of hours later and I ascended to the summit ridge where the Ruskie guide had a brew on and a grin as broad as Cheshire cat. From here, the views were very special and regardless of the terrain or experience of each client, we soloed up the ridge to the summit. That wasnt too bad despite the desperate drop on either side. What was worse, was the descent where people were unsure of their footings, slipping, tripping and falling without having practiced any form of ice-axe arrest. It was very, very scary watching and it was difficult not to get too involved. I offered some advice to a couple, but kept it low-key. I didnt want to piss the Ruskies off any more than I had already. As the sun started setting, the views were just stunning. We could see the Mongolian Altai mountains in the distance and the hills of Kazakhstan beneath us. China was there too, somewhere in that direction! A very long abseil decent brought us to the solo section of the cirque of death and we reached the tents just as it was dark. Unsurprisingly, I was keen to sleep, but also to rope up on the descent and suggested to the guides that we do so. Blank looks were all I got and I said that if they werent prepared to use the ropes, I would like to leave camp very early before the sun hit too much. They couldnt understand why, but agreed anyway. After sleep and breakfast, I left camp and motored down the steep slopes, scouring the ground ahead and making a mental note of where the crevasses were. I remember thinking at the time about a Jon Krakauer story where he soloed, in his youth, a glacier and put skis through his rucksack shoulder straps, so if he fell in a crevasse, there might have been a chance the skis would stop him. I wished I had had some skis. If I popped in a slot here, would I ever be found? Dead, or worse, alive down a Kazakhstanian crevasse in the middle of nowhere! It sounds stupid now, but my plan was to get trekking pole out and if I fell, drop it onto solid ground so there would be some evidence of my passing. It sounded stupid then too, but I couldnt think of anything else to do but motor on. And I did. I was flying and when I got to the top of Delone pass, the sun was only just really making its presence felt. The ropes going down over the edge looked strangely misshapen somehow. Maybe it was just a trick of the light? As I abseiled down, I discovered that the top rope had been replaced by lots of small sections of rubbish rope that was about 200 years old and knotted together to make it long enough to reach the first ice-screw. Welcome once again, to Russia. As I approached the first knot, I prussicked around it and was sweating. Fuck, if this holds itll be a miracle. Trying to down-climb and not put too much weight on the rope, I passed three more knots before I reached an ice-screw, modern rope and relative safety. Everything seemed fine again and the descent down the next five rope lengths continued without any further dramas. Thinking light thoughts, I descended the final part of the glacier and an hour later, was back at Tomskie Nochevskie, very relieved. The next day, we descended the glacier, unroped of course to the safety of the base-camp and a lovely banya and even a pricey beer! The descent turned out to be the sting in the tail and follows the Akkem River down a steep gorge of around 24km. Sasha, a Russian guy and I were on a mission and had descended very, very quickly together, eager to get back to some kind of civilisation. Horses cant go down the gorge and it would be nigh on impossible to get a helicopter in also. As sods law would have it, almost exactly half the way down, I got stung on the head by a particularly venomous Russian bee or wasp or something, I didnt see it and it was no big deal at the time, but as time went on, I started to realise that something was wrong. Cutting a very long story short, my feet got tingly, then slowly my ankles were itchy then my thighs. My bum and crotch area then became so itchy that I thought I had ants in my shorts so lagged behind Sasha and dropped my shorts to look but just saw big, red lumps, everywhere. My chest went itchy, I couldnt breathe properly and after about 45 minutes, I slowed to a snails pace. After an hour, my pulse was really racing, I was barely moving and I really got concerned when my face went numb and then my forehead was completely paralysed so I couldnt raise my eybrows. Welcome to Russia! There was nothing I could do. We had no comms and Sashas English wasnt that good to let him know exactly what was happening. I sat down and immediately started to pass out, which I knew would not have been good, so I slapped myself a few times and got up and just kept going. Every time I felt I was going to faint, I just kept slapping my face and at the nearest stream, topped up with 3 litres of water. The only thing I could think of was to drink loads and keep going, no matter. After about 2 hours, things very, very slowly started to reverse and I knew I was going to be ok. The itching stayed for a while and I felt a bit odd for a while too, but happily all returned to normal after 24 hours or so. Guess what? Now, I carry an epipen just in case! So much more to tell about a fascinating region, but that has to be for another day. Stef Economides , '  ( ) } 6 U *+I"#%&CH;j~d4g+&'(ǿǿǴǴh[hTW$CJaJh[hNMCJaJhcnCJaJh[hnCJaJhk]CJaJh[hN1CJaJh1 CJaJh[hCJaJhxCJaJ>+,) * D +efrs!!##u(!"*: #9 &$& S ` !~!!!!""#####;%C%G%f%p%x%&&''º¯¤h[h PCJaJh[hCJaJh[hBCJaJh.?CJaJh[h>CJaJh[hNMCJaJhxCJaJhcnCJaJh[hTW$CJaJhcnhTW$6CJaJ:'''(( (((L(e(v((())**t-Q.R.[/00*1I1z12222L4S4m4n44444 5@5H5M5j555D66666 77*77P8W8k88]9999:ǿǿǿ⿷ⷿⷿhk]CJaJheTCJaJhxCJaJh(CJaJh[CJaJh[hCJaJhxCJaJh.?CJaJh[h[CJaJh[hCJaJ>u(v())++R.S.//00n4o4Q7R777^8_899::==??+]+gdeTgdeT:6:A:e::::!< ==p==???@@@@@@Ĺh[hxCJaJhxCJaJhxhx6CJaJhxCJaJhKCJaJhk]CJaJheTCJaJh1 CJaJ?@@q@r@@+]+gdeT21h:peT. 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