Part 1

The Expedition to Chatyn in 4 parts

  This year, on the 23 rd of February, 23 years have passed form the day of the first winter ascent to Chatyn (14475 ft/4412 m) and, strangely enough, all the members of that expedition have still been alive:
1. Moshnikov Anatoly
2. Barulin Boris
3. Kalmikov Sergey
4. Sazanov Victor  

Some words of the history:
1994 – Team from Rostov passed in winter along the route of Myshliaev.
1998 – three-men team from Moscow tried to make an ascent but managed only to approach to the route.
2001 – three-men team from St. Petersburg, failed
2002 – two-men team from St. Petersburg, managed to climb up to the middle of the route
Anatoly

P.S. The first technical routes of 5B grade of difficulty were passed in 1978 (unfortunately, abroad by the year 1958 almost all known routes in the Alps had been passed in winter, but, on the other hand, some of the ascents were made in March and winter there was more mild, as our ascent to Eiger (13025 ft/3970 m) in winter 1997 showed). The first winter ascent was the climb along the route of 5B grade of difficulty to the Peak Trud, made by Moshnikov, Barulin, Basmakov, Glushkovsky. About winter ascents had been made before we hadn't found official data, although some of the alpinists said that they had taken place…

Anatoly Moshnikov

Part one

Now nobody could recall who in Moscow suggested to climb to Chatyn along a legendary Northern Face (along the Rhomb) and, moreover, to make this ascent in winter, but!...

In February 2006 we were ready to start. The expedition had strong but not numerous composition: Andrei Kazakov, Sergey Nilov and the leader – Victor Volodin. Having heroically dug a waist-deep trench, the guys reached the bottom of the wall, and in spite of terrible weather started the ascent. But the weather made its changes and the alpinists had to go down, leaving portaledge and equipment at the wall. As Volodin said: “it was a close call”!

Part two

Demchenko don't give up easily, so in March 2006 the team of the same composition made one more attempt. They again made a path and climb to the portaledge. But that time the weather went bad in sober sadness. According the words of Sergey Nilov: about 10 degrees of frost, heavy snowfall, and wind of about forty mps, sticking snow to the wall. Super! And the portaledge that tried to fly away with us. By night they set their minds at rest: “everything is fine, they are on a yacht”, and by day they froze and climbed. On the third day of the ascent their portaledge was broken and they took the only correct decision: to stop the climb and start the descent quickly. Having left some of the routes and a trunk hanging at the wall, the team descented to the camp with difficulties in two days.

And it seemed – it was the end…

But not!!!

Part 3

Sergey Nilov's tranquility, persistence and efficiency can be compared only with tractor-mounted dozer! He eats a lot and doesn't want to work without food, but these are only minutiae.

As soon as he had gone back to Moscow he started to think over the details of the new expedition. The first term – it must be winter, second – well prepared, third – strong team of four men.

The composition of the team was determined, except Nilov there were Sergey Michailov, Dmitry Golovchenko, Sergey Kutkin and trainers: Viktor Volodin, Sergey Kutkin. From the beginning of autumn the guys had began to prepare equipment for the expedition. They had started making a portaledge. With the help of, as it is called “the entire world”, a month later comfortable and durable portaledge for four men was ready.

They arrived to the Caucasus in the very end of December, in the New Year's eve. They made their home in the tourist base “Elbrus” (it had become like home to them). The chief Galina also met the guys as relatives and settled them in the most comfortable rooms.

The weather treated the alpinists kindly, too: freeze and sun (apropos, the freeze was hard, it was 17-19 degrees below zero on the base, and in the room was 18 degrees above zero)

On the next day after arriving they carried the equipment up, in the well-known direction. And then they understood they were lucky there was less by half snow than the previous expeditions saw. But even in such a situation, nobody could call the approach simple. According to the description in summer it takes 12 walking hours, so in winter this time can be easily multiplied by two.

It took the team five days to carry the equipment and provision to the beginning of the route. As Dmitry said: “How thoroughly they had hidden the mount!” They decided no to take a tent with us (to economize on weight) – 3 kg , all in all! So, on the way they dug a cave, in which they passed several nights, at the same time it served as a staging post, as they had so much gear that had to leave parts of equipment on the pass as well as in the cave. At the bottom of the wall with great difficulties, having very nearly broken a spade, they dug one more cave. Having a lot of fun, with joys and bywords, they carried to the wall no less then about 200 kg of gear (different provision, gas-bottles, import ropes and a huge amount of different metal widgets that are called equipment).

From the talks between the participants of the expedition:

-“This is to deny ourselves nothing (especially provision) during hard everyday work”

-“Mmm, and now with all this we will try to climb somewhere… if we could…”

The way from the base to the mount exhausted the participants seriously. They had to leave a part of the equipment in the cave and to climb, as it is called “with light baggage”.

Upwards there was hellish cold! They hadn't a thermometer, but their sleeping bags were getting covered with hoar-frost on the inside. At night they fell asleep to the accompaniment of chorus clatter of jaws, and when they woke up they clattered too, merely louder. All the time a dorky commercial: “Ice!!!??? No, it isn't ice!!!”

By the end of the second day Sergey Michailov fell sick: constant cough, at night he couldn't fell asleep, heavy breathing, constant crepitation. And the team had to stop the expedition again.

They took everything down, threw the ropes down, and left everything at the bottom of the wall near the cave. Having taken little part of the equipment, the team went to the base. On the base they started thinking what to do further: to carry everything down to the base or to climb upwards. The second variant couldn't be used as the vacations of all the alpinists of the team, except Nilov, came to the end it meant that all their efforts, as it was called, “run to waste”. Nilov fell into hard thoughts, and at that moment the guys got a new idea: they need to gather a new expedition, the composition of which can be found straight there, in the Caucasus .

The problem was not easy, as there were only few ambitious and harsh men who could agree to this adventure, but rather solvable. For three days Sergey run along the canyon, asking and calling to all who could participate the expedition, and finally, he found. There were two men, one of them was Evgeny Korol who was ready to depart to Moscow the next day and the second was Sergey Doronin, who arrived to the Caucasus to sky and was ready to go away too.

In the evening they thought everything over. They decided that to pass a route like that they need one more, the fourth participant. For two days they were looking for a candidate, but normal people didn't agree, and not normal ones they didn't mange to find. They thought once more and decided to climb three together, as it was called “in a light variant”. For about a month the weather had remained fine and it was going to get bad one day. Everybody who learnt about our plans said we were crazy. When I heard this, I felt ill at ease.

Having taken personal equipment and some provision, on the 17 th of January at five o'clock in the morning we went away from the tourist base Elbrus. The weather was clear and frosty, the path had remained in excellent condition, so we went easily and quickly and 14 hours later we were at the bottom of the wall. We dug an entrance to the cave and at one time started to cook meals and to prepare equipment having had substantial supper, we packed the rucksacks and at ten o'clock p.m. fell asleep. Our sleep wasn't long, at 5 o'clock alarm clock rang… Further we made a series of standard operations, by trembling hands and nearly in sleeping condition: we switched the gas-jet, put a pot with snow to it, swept the snow away from the sleeping bags, got from our bosoms warmed by bodies but wet gloves and put them right away (not to allow them to become covered with ice), add snow to the pot, crawled out from the sleeping bags, got inside boots and socks from them, put them on, by frozen hands put sleeping bags to the cases, boiled tea, and poured it out to mugs. Then we warmed hand on hot mugs, drank tea with a chocolate and became unfrozen. By a tea ceremony like this every morning we escaped from coldness. Then went substantial breakfast and we started! At 7 o'clock we went out from the cave, heavy wind and hellish cold met us! The pieces of clothes that were wet, at the moment got frozen. We recalled and old anecdote about a Chukchi man who bought a fridge to use it in tundra (“in the tundra it is 50 degrees below zero, and in the fridge only 5! Chukchi man is going to warm in it!”). A grandiose landscape opened up before our eyes. Straight above our hands hung and set against the sky legendary and fate bulwark, the rhomb itself, that one that had become a stumbling block and had taken away the lives of a lot of people. 600 meters of granite were above us! Everyone felt mixed feelings, greatness of the nature and fear of the unknown. We stopped, looked at each other. Sergey Nilov screwed an ice screw and, with peculiar to his nature calmness, pronounced: “Belay me, or something…” And started to climb… By this phrase he was likely to cross… Everybody mentally cut off the way back.

Having passed the ice we started climbing along the narrow rocky couloir where the scraps of old ropes, bitten by stone fallings were hanging, some of them were simply dangling, got entangled on splits-off or got stick in some of cracks a lot of descending loops hanging along all the couloir (some of them consisted of one hook and a thin tape of rucksack, knitted in the ear). In the head I had eternal alpinist's questions: “Where are we going? Why do we need to climb there?”