The fourth ascent of Alexander Ruchkin's route to Free Korea Peak, 6 «а» grade.

In Bishkek there is «Classic» cafe, where we met togethe: Andrey Puchinin and me, Ivan Pugachev.

From Izuskatel Peak, May team practice session 2007

In two weeks we got in touch on the phone again. Ad interim the Campionship was in full swing: The Kazakhs climbed Chipa 5 «б» on Semenov Tien Shan, and Bachu. The Kirghiz hung up ropes on Zakharovskaya 5 «б», the Krasnoyars kept everything in secret, but promised to put forward three teams. The Tomichs acclimatized and prepared for Barbera, the Perms prepared for Lou, the Uzbeks were en route, the main referee of the championship Dmitry Grekov with Pasha Vorobyev make a «container» on Boks by Mikhailov.

The routes left to right: Green line route: Bezzubkin V., 66 Red line route: RuchkinА. - Puchinin А., 97 The route we passed 06-09.02.09 Green line route: Mushlyaev L., 66 Fhoto: 06.02.09, from the glacier

Act 1 – hotel hall: two climbers are gathering things and gesticulating.

Act 2 –We load and ascend to «Ratceka» camp, where we finish loading with gear hidden in a stash, then ascend to «Koronovskie».

Act 3, The main one! Andrew with clear, reliable, proven moves goes on the abrupt ice, belaying himself with polished Grivel ice screws. Then I start moving. Minitraction helps me to haul, ascenders help me to ascend.

Afternoons, the Sun lights up «Koronovskie» huts (in my mind 2 huts are alive, but now only one of them exists) but we are still in shadow – it is the northern face of Free Korea Peak !  Ice is passed, it means 6 full-grown 60 meter pitches. My time comes, because there are famous rocky cornices ahead! I start AIDing. On the first cornice there are two local  bolts in a distance of nearly 15 m from each other. About two meters before the bolt I placed a Kurk birdbeak in the crack, and flew 6 m, clanking with my rack! Andrew reacted correctly, and the jerk was soft.

We fixed 2 more ropes till the dark and began to prepare for the night – to hang the place for tent under the cornice. While we were hanging it, the night came and night city lights went on. Andrew laid out things, and I descended half a pitch to gather snow for cooking.

We had a pocket personal computer with us and in the evening we could call and even glance on the weather forecast on gismeteo the weather wasn't good.

By night I woke up with a strange feeling. The matter is that I slept in my helmet, and it froze to the tent. I could turn my head but couldn't tear off the tent. It is bigwall alpinism.

Day second. In the night we woke up, drank something. At 5 AM we were at the end of the lines. Andrew worked all the ice, I made rocks. It turned out 12 pitches more. Emotions on the ridge and descent.

Ad interim the weather became worse . We apseiled to the glacier already in snowfall. On the last pitch I tried to throw a cargo haul bag through the berg, and ped it. We had to apseil once more for the haul bag.

While we were had some tea, the guys from Perm arrived. In the dark we went to the wall once more and brought the rest of gear. In the evening we drank up cognac, remembered Volodya Arhipov from Krasnoyarsk.  

The ascent proper ended then. We succeeded in quick ascent of the wall – the fourth ascent of Ruchkin‘s route. We would remind you that first three ascents were made by: Ruchkin Alexander – Puchin Andrew, Novoseltcev Eugene – Gutnik Nicolay, and the team of ЦСК - Kazakhstan followed.

With this ascent we won the Open Championship of Bishkek in alpinism!

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  Ascent passport