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Mountain photos - amateur
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Author: Gleb Sokolov, Novosibirsk
Traverse
Unfortunately (but it really can’t be so) in 1998 and the next years when I undertook attempts of high-speed solo ascents Pobeda peak, the weather was disgusting and it was the plain folly to tamper with the Mountain. My friends-tourists tried some times to pass the traverse from Chon-Teren pass, had to break trail in breast-deep snow and in 2000 got into an avalanche on East Pobeda and came out with theirs life by a some miracle. Both they and I had such unavailing attempts in seasons of 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002. Only in 2003 the window of good weather fell on August, 10-20, but at that time I joined the Krasnoyarians and climbed a new route on Pobeda East Face.
In all my previous attempts I made three ascents Khan Tengri for acclimatization because I know firmly: that only concurrence of all factors (they are weather, the route’s condition, physical form, acclimatization, correct tactics of traversing, knowing of the route) will help to run all these kilometers successfully. Otherwise, well, you know what's what... This winter I came to understanding that the pure high-speed traverse is improbable and as I'm going to climb K-2 the next year who knows what tomorrow holds? I should try this long single "sailing", but starting not from the top of Vazha Pshavel but on the contrary... To ascend is always more safe than to descend if you go on an unknown route in the fog moreover through breast-deep snow. Well, and sure enough it did. As in the spring of this year I in structure of the Kuzbass expedition ascended Cho-Oyu for restoration of acclimatization I had to climb Khan Tengri once (it was my 20-th time) and to spend the night at 6400 m three times. Khan Tengri ascent on the classical route from Southern Inylchek glacier does not represent a big complexity and it would be ideal for getting of normal acclimatization before Pobeda save for one thing: a dangerous Semenovsky glacier on which a part of the route passes. The high-speed solo high-altitude ascent demands special, specific climbing equipment and clothes. It is the light, strong, "breathing" clothes, lightened warm high-altitude boots, a small rucksack for a thermos, a down parka and supplementary mittens. To tell the truth if weather spoils or under other force-majeur circumstances (discrepancy of the conditions, see above) you will receive a heap of unsoluble problems with corresponding result. In my case, I specify special, but a little bit inconsistent requirements to clothes and equipment. It should be sound, warm clothes, footwear, a sleeping bag and a tent allowing to wait of a little bit days of bad weather in relative comfort, not becoming wet and not dampening in due course and at the same time possessing in the minimal weight. In my opinion the excellent clothes made by "BASK" answer all these purpose. Especially I was impressed by a series of overalls, from underwear up to membrane overalls in which it is possible just to swim simply in friable and fluffy snow, and as you know two - three meter-snow carpet sometimes happens on East Pobeda. I have made use of high-altitude boots "BOREAL" (model "G-1"), crampons "GRIVEL" (model "2F"), ice-axe "CHARLET MOZER" (model "PULSAR"), a lantern and a harness "PETZL" ("DUO" and "CALIDRIS"), snowshoes "MSR" for a long time, and this equipment conformed fully to the task. A sleeping bag "Bask" (model "ACONKAGUA") is light and cold so-so. A new backpack ("AGRESSOR" by "Bask") is rather convenient, but the single tent for extreme climbs appeared underfulfilled. The set of viands was a big problem for me. I did not manage to get good sublimated products. Therefore I got in my depot 1,5 kg of fresh cucumbers, 1kg of apples, two fried broiler drumsticks, 200 grams of uncooked smoked sausage, 100 grams of smoked fish, 200 grams of naturally dried fish, a half of a loaf of black bread, 200 grams of jam, 200 grams of cognac, 20 tea bags, 2 cans of beer, 200 grams of candied pineapple sections. My kitchen set included a stove, a little teapot and three small gas bags. All of this should be enough for me for four - five days, and at economy, under unforeseen circumstances for six - seven. Except for all these obligatory things, I had an audio player and a camera "NIKON" F80 with an objective 24-120. The full weight of my rucksack was about 17kg. This year weather brought in significant updating to the plans of climbing teams and groups that planned to make different ascents in Central Tien Shan. Alcyon and breathless weather and a plenty of snow had fell during the spring, created a dangerous situation at the area of high altitudes. Slopes appeared overloaded with friable high-altitude snow, the routes on Pobeda peak and peak Khan Tengri became very difficult, heavy and dangerous. Daily after-dinner deposits only worsened the situation. Unfortunately, below on Southern Inylchek, Zvezdochka and other glaciers there was warm enough, it was short of snows and that deformed our representations about the situation with above. The season promptly came to end, and for this reason having taken advantage of time improvement of weather in the second decade of August the majority of the teams started their ascents.
On August, 16 at 4.30 I left "Ak-Say" camp settled on a moraine of Zvezdochka glacier. Weather was excellent, snow bridges held perfectly, and, never having failed I was barely half-an-hour out of Chon-Teren pass by 13.30, and only limp slushy snow did not allow me to rise on the cofferdam. A beer (minus 1 kg), music, warm evening and night restored my forces well. On August, 17 I started at 8.30. The frozen traces left by a team from Eketerinburg held well and at 11.00 I was already on the pass. The first, very abrupt rise brought the first unpleasant surprise. The more abruptly the slope was the more snow was there. Through 100 meters I sank through the snow waist-high, through 50-m more - breast-high, and through 20-m - neck-high. The technique of movement in such snow is extremely simple. First you have to shovel with your hands (if it is a snow slab) the snow under your feet. If snow is fluffy or friable you just clap it. Further you lift up a leg with the aid of your hands (because in clothes, boots, crampons (or snowshoes) it is impossible to do leg raising all alone. If your leg sinks into the snow you remove it, add more snow and make a fresh start. In friable snow you have to do that all the time, frequently several times for one step. It is necessary to move with the maximal care, trying to not sink the snow on all depth, form steps cautiously, without sharp impacts and claps, rise vertically upwards, not cutting the slope. It is hard enough when you rest with your face against the snow edge and work in such style for some hours. On such slopes it is just impossible to turn back because you can not do fluent movement downwards and the chance to leave "fast" with all heap of fluffy soft snow is very high. Through a pair of rises I understood that the point of return was on the pass. In the meantime smart weather hopelessly deteriorated. A lot of clouds were blown in by wind, it started snowing, and visibility became poor. It was not cold, but a sensation of weariness affected and at 17.00 somewhere at 6300 under a small snow drift I settled my tent. All the evening long I felt my hands writhed: the unusual movement when your hands were the same participants as your legs affected. It needs to notice that my hands worked in such way practically the all ascent, and every evening sitting in the tent I received a lot of "pleasurable" sensations. A cup of tea under good music, a writing-book for verses temper your loneliness well. On August, 18 it was heavy snowing and windy all the day long. I had a day of forced rest. Few times I had to dig out the tent where it was cold all the time. Cognac, music and verses help in such situation very much. On August, 19 I went at 8.00. Good weather was holding since the morning, but in the afternoon habitually spoiled. The slopes were charged up to the limit. I could not climb the last summit directly upwards: could not trample the snow and just simply sank in a snowdrift. My extended upwards hands kept for the edge but the legs did not get the bottom. So, I had to put on snowshoes and being waist-deep in the snow and pulling out legs with my hands "cut up" to the nearest rocks. Usually I count a quantity of steps then have a rest and then in such way again... But this time I had to count my steps aloud and even to shout - I was really exhausted. All the rise, about 250 meters I went for six hours and some of the sites of 50 meters I moved for three hours. I climbed on rocks fifty meters more searching a place for bivy. At 18.30 it was brutally cold. Weather - murder! It seemed I was setting a tent as long as a month of Sundays. I thought: That is the whole story! Kaput! I had to take off my mittens and operate with naked hands. Fingers were frozen a bit like I touched a frying pan. Then I had to shake out the snow. For a minute while I was getting my rucksack inside, snow piled against the tent. All the night long I was chittering.
On August, 20 I started at 8.15. It was cold, but normal weather. I climbed on rocks. Class! That's a wholly different proposition! Under the Big stone, at a distance of 100 meters from the top I found a depot left there in 2000. Well, I took from it two gas cartridges, a plastic bottle with a black currant, a can of concentrated milk and "Ahmad" tea in bags. Thank you very much, my friends! At 11.30, East Summit! What a pleasure to go knee-deep in snow, on the warm, solar, Chinese side! I met climbers from Kazan. They were moving down at the mouth. Well, I see... I moved on their traces for an hour and reached a prepared site. There were not any seen traces further: snow had drifted everywhere. I decided to stay there as I was very exhausted for the previous days and another heavy day was ahead. Batteries in my portable radio set were run down, and I could remain without radio communication. The evening was good! The clouds were dissolving from behind Pobeda, but it was already clear that this day the bad weather would not be. Again music, tea with jam, verses... It seems to me that a man sometimes should want to be alone, to think about his life, what is right in it and what is not, to stay face to face with the problems of survival when he must make the decisions in his own which his life directly depends on. That is not necessarily to be mountaineering. Well, this is my opinion, and, as they say, editorial opinion can not coincide with opinion of the author. On August, 21 weather was excellent, I started moving at 8.00. And again there were avalanche-hazardous rises filled with snow. I had to move very cautiously. The ridges break off to the Chinese side with snow cornices, and leave in Russian side with the slopes on which already snow slabs were formed. The abrupt rise deducing to Armenia peak was "charged" up to the limit: everywhere you could head was snow slabs. But I did not have the other way and had to climb the ridge poorly grinning through the snow. To the left there was a cornice from friable snow smoothly passing in front of me in a powerful snow slab of thickness up to one meter that blocked for me the entire slope on the right. The rise became extremely dangerous, and I decided to cut its most abrupt part. On the previous rise it had passed very successfully. Some movements to the right... I had not time to jump aside, and the huge washing machine twirled and dragged me downwards... After some instants, and I was already lower on hundred meters shimmed in rocky outcrop of the northern slope. Slightly to the left - to the right and... It would be the “Last flight of albatross” song. 11.00. I was sitting in a snowdrift like a cutlet in garnish, the left leg was at my ear, I felt hurt but it was not fatal. My elbow was hurting too. But an ice-axe was in my hand and even a rucksack was in place, behind my back. I shook snow out my camera and me, took a photo of a trajectory of my flight and quickly hobbled upwards. All postflight analysis and analysis of mistakes would be later, below. In twenty minutes I was already at Armenia peak's summit, and run here against waist-deep snow and disgusting ice crust, very dense, but not holding even when you go in snowshoes. 13.00. I began ascent on Pobeda Main. There was a lot of snow, ice crust, but the slope was safe enough. In an hour I found myself on the wide snow slope conducting to the summit ridge. It was great and good pleasure to go in snowshoes: without them I fell in up to waist, in them - knee-deep. What for the helicopter flied above for a long time. Someone could see my "flight"? My portable radio did not work, my battery went kaput. At 17.30 I established camp on the ridge in a very successful, beautiful and safe place before the last rise up to the summit. It was the windy evening, but the sky was clear and it was very cold.
On August, 22 the sun was shining, it was windy and cold. I left at 7.30. The ridge was simple, there was not enough snow, firn was basically everywhere. 11.50. Summit! These seconds are worth to live at all. The descent route from Pobeda Main held a lot of surprises for. If earlier it was too much for climbers but this time it presented in general vertical ridges with a heap of a snow. So, I had to take aside China a little and traversed very abrupt and deep snow to the more flat part of the ridge swimming in snowdrifts again and (thank Heaven!) adhering to rocks here and there. Further I climbed about 300 meters on front points then on foot and sliding downhill on my back in the trough under the Obelisk (7000m). In the trough I found a tent and any box from under the TV!? Would I have thought a little that it's just impossible to bring such box here... But I was just surprised and moved further, it could not be mine... The box had been was flung down by helicopter's pilots especially for me. And there were in it...
The weather in the meantime absolutely deteriorated: snow, wind, fog and zero visibility. "Verblyud (Camel)" - the main, snow-ice gendarme in the ridge between Main and Western Pobeda I climbed gropingly. I only felt that it was very abrupt downwards and if avalanche sites or deep snow came across I left upwards to the cornices. The traverse appeared not good, but I really did that! Before my traverse's start I agreed with a team from Kemerovo to stand by each other on the Mountain. I hoped to find a tent of the guys behind Verblyud, but I did not and shuffled off farther, expecting up to darkness to be lowered a little from Pobeda West and stay the night in place more sheltered from the wind. But darkness came much earlier. At 17.30 I could distinguish only my hands and it was necessary to put a tent. The wind was as if it went mad... The feeling that someone threw snow to my face with shovel woke me up I opened my eyes and found a snowdrift instead of my backpack in front of me, I was covered with a snowdrift too and the wind was sweeping into the tent. I squinted: instead of the entrance into the tent I could see a screen showing silver Khan Tengri in the moonlight... I managed hardly to creep up to the entrance. The strong wind opened the tent having squeezed out the zipper. I tried to fasten: it was impossible because of ice frozen over the runners. I warmed them with naked hands. I hardly managed to do that. The tent's poles had already taken off by this time and the tent became simply like a bag that rescued it from the final break. Two more times the tent was opened and I had just spit on the zipper, to freeze so to say the entrance. Well, the night was not tiresome; it spent in the struggle for survival. It would be most vexatious to make such traverse but finally to turn into a piece of frozen meat.
On August, 23 weather was nasty. The very strong gusty and cold wind blew off all the snow for a night and carried away my snowshoes. Hardly, from time to time climbing on all fours I got to Vazha Pshavel's peak (6918 m). But what a remarkable descent! Firn. The wind became more and more silent with every meter. 6600 meters. Tent. Georgians. Friends. But my first joy turned into bitterness: I was talked that Sergey Zuev caught into an avalanche from Verblyud's slope and was lost. Damned "Verblyud". That is why the helicopter had flied and I had not met the guys on the Mountain... ........................................................................... 18.30. Base camp. FINITA LA COMMEDIA
P.S. And now I know precisely: the high-speed, for a day, traverse is POSSIBLE! If to observe all the terms only... |
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