September 4th, we miss our flight from LA to Istanbul. September 5th we miss our flight from Istanbul to Bishkek. September 6th both of our gear bags fail to arrive in Bishkek. September 8th a sewage pipe bursts in the kitchen of our b&b spewing feces all over. Sometimes trips begin smooth, sometimes trips begin poorly, sometimes trips begin with frustration, anxiety and poop soaked socks.
English is not commonly spoken in Kyrgyzstan. Correction, English is not spoken in Kyrgyzstan. To further complicate matters all of the signs and script are in Cyrillic so there is no hope of understanding pronunciation. Shopping is a blur. The street Bazaar has been feeling like I am wading through a salad. Our bags arrive. We're in a van all day. We arrive in Naryn.
Let's go! Our driver Sasha's English catch phrase. Dirt roads in the hippie van lead to creek beds and a nasty bog. Bogs don't bother Sasha one bit, he drives directly into one and gets the van stuck. We stop for the night and I have the single worst bout of altitude related illness I have ever had. We have gained over 2000m in a single day and are at nearly 4000m. My head is exploding, our van is stuck and Sasha is trying to use two jacks that look like the we part of a stock kit from a VW beetle to lift us out.
Basecamp is awesome. The sun is out we are wearing jeans and relaxing in the grass. The the terminal moraine from the Komorova glacier begins just a few feet away. We spend a couple of days acclimating and decide to go and climb a new line on the Ochre Walls near Sean Issac and Scott Decapio's "Beefcake." We leave and night get totally lost in the moonless blackness and end up having an open bivy waiting for a the extra lazy fall sunrise. We head back to basecamp and sleep resolved to hike in the next morning and hike back in the dark.
We cruise to the base of the wall and begin the lung busting lower slopes. Heavy breathing and thin ice will be the theme today. We move well and top out with plenty of daylight to descend. As has been an on going theme with Sam and my partnership we suffer on the approaches but everything else goes extremely smooth once on route. We dub our line "Mr. Casual" 600m AI5.
Excited to get on our main objective we pack up what we hope will be 12 days of food and start walking toward the pass that will take us into China and the South side of Kyzyl Asker. The weather had other ideas. A storm rolled in blanketing the region with several feet of snow and whiting out the glacier. Two days spent stewing in the tent and we can't take it any longer. We head out into the white hoping to make some progress.
Some map problems have us running for Kyzyl with light packs, a few days food, a tarp and a couple of canisters of fuel. Thinking we would have two days of approach, we arrive at the base in just a few hours. Another horrible bivy, more storm, no tent and we are running back over the pass to gather basecamp provisions. Finally we are in position. We have a few days to spare, but we have a full day of perfect weather and decide to launch.
We put nearly 900m of air between us and the ground the first day, the climbing is spectacular. We spend a couple of hours chopping a ledge at 5300m and settle in for the night. Sometime after midnight the snow began to fall. Spindrift instantly consumed the line. We hid under our tarp for nearly 24 hours hoping the snow would stop so we could move. With the constant spindrift and frequent larger powder avalanches we were pinned unable to safely move up or down.
It cleared for a few hours that night and we made our escape. The rappel was plagued by small freezing avalanches. Sam would yell from above, I would duck, the world would go white then we would continue down. Near the middle of the rappel we heard the sound we both feared. A loud crack and crashing noise from high on the mountain. We tucked in, nothing happened but the sound got louder. I looked at Sam a few feet below me and through myself on top of him and the anchor as the avalanche hit. This was not just powder, heavy blocks of snow and ice pummeled us. Unable to move we just tried to stay as close to the face and anchor as possible and both of us could only hope that no bigger blocks of material were on the way to wipe us off the mountain.
We got away unscathed, more or less, and continued to the base. This is the best line I have tried in the mountains and will return. I feel fortunate to have gotten off in one piece but I can wait to go back. We are in Bishkek now waiting to go home. I am excited to see friends and family. I'm excited for ice season.
Shopping in the bazaar is hard because everything is fresh and delicious looking
Lunch time with Sasha
Sam following a spicy little pitch of ice on the f.a. of Mr. Casual
Celebrating on top of the Ochre Walls
Sam leading into the fun on the SW Face of Kyzyl Asker
Sam taking off into the steeper ice on Mr. Casual
Soul destroying 60 ice to our bivy on the SW Face of Kyzyl Asker
