We woke Saturday morning surrounded by mountains in the village of Kara Suu. We were in awe of their majesty and quickly started studying them for potential ski lines. This area has had an extremely dry winter so far, with only about 40cm of snow since October, compared to an average of about 1.5m. The initial part of the range we were intending on skiing simply doesn’t have enough snow and so we headed to the far northeast of the range, where they’ve had slightly more snow to investigate options there. We’ve had to put the skiing on hold however as my ski bag is still somewhere in Turkey (maybe in Istanbul, maybe in Ankara, it depends on which representative you speak to). Instead we went to check out the village’s museum, which was very impressive given the size and stature of Kara-suu. We were able to learn a bit more about Kyrgyz history, their nomadic traditions and learn the in’s and out’s of a yurt. We also were fortunate to witness a Sunday afternoon game of Kok-Boru, a traditional Kyrgyz version of polo, where the ball is a goat carcass. Sunday is market day and everything in the whole region stops. We were able to entertain ourselves for hours wandering through the aisles of colourful materials, wool, cheese, sheep, horses and cows for sale. It was -30 and pretty grey but the vendors and shoppers were full of laughs and smiles. We were also laughing and smiling for the most part, until we tried the jarma. It’s a fermented wheat drink, kind of like salty, moldy porridge, apparently it’s delicious but it made us all sick (actually). That afternoon we went visiting, hoping to find a variety of villagers to interview about climate change, their thoughts and how it’s impacting them and their families. We struck gold when we interrupted a social gathering of several women. Despite our unannounced arrival we were warmly welcomed with many cups of tea, more food than we could possibly eat and several more cups of jarma. (The big lesson learnt here was to eat as slowly as possible). We also had champagne and wine and were toasted to many times with “may you have as much luck as the mountains are high”. We were able to interview several villagers here and were amazed at their insights into the causes and consequences of climate change. Like we are so connected to the mountains with skiing, they are so connected to the land with their farming. They may live very simple lives, mainly as subsistence farmers, and have relatively little education but they are well and truly aware of the changing weather and how it impacts them. Despite the toasts our luck came to an end. Sunday night found all three of us visiting the outhouse at various times, fortunately not all at once. The Jarma didn’t go down quite so well and spending a few hours squatting over a hole in the ground in -30c has made us not very willing to try it again. On Monday we went to the local school. It serves the whole village of 5000 people and has about 700 students from grade 1-11. Once again, we were welcomed with open arms and hearts into the class rooms. We taught a small amount of English, some New Zealand geography, did some skipping (Gabby’s secret talent) and had some general discussions about climate change with some of the students who were especially eager to hang out with us. Again, the students were well aware of climate change but weren’t quite able to explain the how’s and the whys. One thing is for sure though, they are not doing anything to contribute to it. Every single student in our classroom walked to school, many from more than 5km away. In the summer some of them will ride their horses or take the busses that run more frequently then. None of them drive or were driven. Compare that to Aspen where it is 30°c warmer on the average winter day and there are 12 free buses an hour drop kids right at the school, yet most are driven. We had our first shower of the week at the local sauna. It was pretty awesome, really warm and we left feeling squeaky clean. Nobody in Kara-suu has running water inside their houses which means a twice weekly visit to the sauna for most people. Again, we are learning to appreciate the simple life, and little these villagers contribute to the global problem of climate change. Lastly we went to visit a women who makes Shyrdaks in her home. Shyrdaks are a traditional Kyrgz carpet made from sheep wool. They are stunning and the skill and time that goes into making them is also incredible. It can take several months to stitch one together and it shows with the remarkable detail. If my ski bag ever arrives I will buy one to put in it on the way home. With no skis in sight on Tuesday we headed out for an overnight adventure to visit a local Shepard in a nearby mountain valley. It would have been an amazing afternoon, heading out on horses with the shepherd to visit his sheep, had I not been folded in half with what felt like some sort of animal moving around inside me. The jarma was back for round two and so I had to sit the day out. Nicole and Gabby however got some horse riding practice in and learnt a lot more about farming in this area. It’s really unusual that the sheep are able to graze at this time of year but as there is so little snow they are still being taken out from their yards each day. Again, we were amazed at the high spirits and good humor of the shepherd and his family, and of their skills. Our host made her own butter, yoghurt, cheese, jams and noodles and carefully stoked the fire with cow patties all day. They too had some great perspective on climate change, having lived as shepherds and worked the land for the past 25 years they had really noticed and felt the impacts of the past few extreme winters. They noted that despite life being a little easier in such a remote location (they now have some solar panels and a car) We were able to ride horses back to Kara-Suu village today. The 3 hour journey breezed by as we passed through valleys and over rolling hills to get back to Kara-suu. Gabby was officially declared an incompetent rider by the local horseman, and provided with a special horse for the trip… we’re not going to let her forget that. On the other hand, I’m officially and incompetent drone flyer and managed to crash our brand new drone twice in one day. Luckily the first time was into a pile of snow and it appeared unscathed. The second time however involved a direct impact with a tree. The three of us spent quite some time digging around in the snow and cow manure (frozen fortunately) trying to find the missing propellers and once again provided some good entertainment for the locals. Tomorrow we’ll head out to visit Tash Rabat, an historical landmark on the old Silk rd. On Friday if my skis have still not arrived we will change course and head to Arslanbob where there’s potential to rent touring gear and explore the mountains there. Stay tuned for more updates!
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We've spent the past two days in Kyrgyzstan's capital city Bishkek. We had a few goals here; to gather some last minute supplies, to finalise some details with our route and to interview some various community members and experts on climate change in Kyrgyzstan. We picked up some delicious snacks from the local bazar for our journey to At Bashi and for our time in the mountains. One of the largest walnut forests in the world is in Kyrgyzstan so we grabbed a bag (reusable:) ) full of those and an assortment of dried fruit and some highly recommended Kyrgz equivalent of snickers. Our first scheduled meeting in our optimistically itineraried day was with Vladimir Komisarov, president of the Kyrgz alpine club. Our main goal with Vladimir was to go over our route options and get advice from the most experienced climber in Kyrgyzstan and from the person who has probably explored the At-Bashi range the most. We were anticipating possibly being yelled at in Russian and told we had no idea what we were doing. Instead he politely told us about the current conditions, that there has been very little snow so the glaciers are likely not to be filled in at all and that we should probably try some virgin peaks further northeast in the range. He then promptly took some shot glasses out of his cupboard and said we weren't allowed to leave until we had at least two shots. We also weren't real mountaineers until we had tried some of his bacon (also stored in the cupboard and a lovely shade of pale green). I've been vegetarian for longer than I can remember now but I said I would have the full cultural experience here and try some meat. I just couldn't do it though, I stomached the alcohol but I feared the bacon would come back up. Luckily Nicole is an enthusiastic carnivore and promptly ate my slice. To sum things up in one word: Stop 1 with Vladimir was awesome. Stop two with the Central Asian Institute of Geological Sciences was awkward. Between us, the institute's secretary and the head of departments something was lost in translation. We were promptly walked out on and told we were a waste of time when it was discovered we were simply some ordinary skiers and not representative of a large global business or research organization. One of the three heads of departments stayed behind however and enthusiastically presented a slide show of the CAIGS's research stations, their measurements of glacial retreat and waterflow patterns and changes through the countries main rivers. A few not so fun facts we learnt: Kyrgyzstan actually has more glaciers now than it used to as larger ones are shrinking and separating into smaller ones. This is especially evident in the At-Bashi region. The glaciers here are receding very rapidly (although not as rapidly as those around the north pole) and now are forming glacial lakes which are at risk of bursting and this is very well recorded. Two out of out scheduled 4 interviews worked out more or less as planned. The remaining two, again mostly because of miscommunication didn't really. Fortunately Johannes Chuboda, an Austrian and (therefore) ski enthusiast went out of his way to meet up with us at our guest house. The At Bashi range, where we are still heading to is having one of it's driest years on record. It's going to be a great place to visit but in reality the skiing may not be so good. Johannes gave us many ideas for back up plans, should the snow not be sufficient. In a country that's 94% mountains the options can obviously be endless and so it was great to have some help choosing some alternative areas. We will also be tracking our routes and giving this info to Johannes for his up coming guide book for backcountry skiing in Kyrgyzstan - watch this space! Our final meeting of the day was with AJ from Nomansland travel. He has been incredibly helpful in helping us plan over the past year and a half, after hundreds of emails and many Skype calls it was great to finally meet him in person. He is going to be our emergency contact here and gave us good reality checks about the likelihood and speed of a rescue. (Not likely and not fast). He also ordered us some Kyrgyz food for dinner - Dumplings! The vegetarian option turned out to be just a little less meat and a little more vegetables. Apparently a common theme here. I ate them and they tasted great. I'm now a Romatarian :) When in Rome... Or in Bishkek.
Nothing like some last minute skills training in glacier travel (I’m sure I should’ve done this ages ago but better late than never). I decided it was about time I took a glacier skills course so a few months back I booked in for one in Canada. I found I had read books, watched videos and had friends demonstrate systems to me for crevasse rescue but I always forgot and also got confused by the different methods I was seeing. This course kept it simple, it didn’t try to teach you multiple knots or go through different options for rescue systems but it did show you how to conduct a rescue under different situations and all using very similar approaches to avoid confusion. I’ll go through a couple of the things we learnt and try and demonstrate with some pictures but first I’d like to do a bit of good natured gear chat. Our instructor had a Petzl micro traction and if you have a spare $120-150 Canadian they are pretty cool because they work both as an auto locking device when creating a 3:1 system, belaying someone or ascending and they can working when repelling without needing to change your setup (ie going from ascending to repelling) although you do need to add friction to your system when repelling. They are also extremely light! Another piece of weight saving equipment was a static 40m petzl rope, a lot lighter and smaller than any of the other ropes I've picked up. Only to be used for glacier travel when you need the rope to be taught or extremely close to it all the time. No good for climbing where you do want the rope to stretch (dynamic rope) so when someone falls they don't really hurt themselves. Only the MOST useful knots/ hitches to learn, just google them (we were told that these are the most basic but they will get you by): Prusik hitch (standard where you start with a girth hitch and wrap your way inwards) Figure 8 on a bite Munter hitch Clove hitch Not a knot/hitch but look up how to setup your auto blocking device. Its the same setup as you would use when belaying someone up a multi-pitch climb. Building an anchor Skis are great anchors, attach ski straps at top and bottom to keep them together (or any other form of strap you have, if you only have one that’s ok too). Dig a trench 40+cm deep parallel to the edge of the crevasse. Make some indents for the bindings and slope the trench in slightly towards the edge of the crevasse near the bottom to help the skis sit better. Girth hitch a sling to the skis and scratch out a channel with your ice axe from the middle of the trench/ skis towards the edge for the sling to lie in. Make sure this channel goes as deep as the trench at the start so that the angle of the sling on the snow isn’t enough to provide leverage to pull the anchor up. Where the channel meets the snow surface attach a locking carabiner to it (this channel must be at 90 degrees to the edge so that it is pointing straight to the victim and not providing any leverage). You can quickly dig the snow out from under the carabiner so that this area is easier to work with later when setting up your 3:1 system. Also make sure the gate of the carabiner is facing upwards. Crevasse rescue with a 3+ person team: In this situation we are assuming that the team is roped up. We discussed how in winter you are less likely to rope up when on a glacier than in spring and summer. Most of the time in winter crevasses will be filled in and being roped up would add unnecessary delay to the journey. However, this being said, you need to make your own observations because different glacier shapes, annual differences in climate and snowfall and the potential for some parts of glaciers to move faster than others and form crevasses, could change things. Also in general it is better to stick to the middle of the glacier for travel as the edges have higher potential of crevasses. Using your probe to feel for differences in snow pack is way of helping to decide whether to rope up, if after 30 cm you feel empty space beneath your probe then you probably want to be roped to a rock.. Or your partners. If your route on the glacier involves moving up a steep section of the glacier then you may want to rope up even in the middle of an epic winter as you may encounter seracs (where the glacial ice goes over a cliff and creates cracks). Who knows, there is obviously no black and white and I’m just sharing with you what was told to me. Anyway, roughly 12 m of rope between each person (or 5 outstretched arm lengths) with the front and back people carrying an extra 3 or so meters in their packs. Everyone is attached to the rope with a figure 8 on a bite. Imagine the group is walking along and the last person falls into a crevasse. The person immediately in front has to brace the majority of the fall and is pulled to the ground. Because rope will be taught the person in front of the victim will need to attach a prussic to the rope leading to the victim, with a knot or figure 8 after the hitch and then attach this to the anchor by tying a figure 8 on a bite. They will then slide the prusik along the rope so it is taught and takes the weight of the victim. The person ahead up the rope (3rd person) can attach a prusik, remove themselves from their figure 8 and prusik themselves down to the person by the anchor (2nd person). As the rope is now slack a figure 8 on a bite can be made above the 2nd person and attached to the anchor. The 3rd person then probes to the edge and prepares it (the victims rope will likely be dug into the edge and your rescue rope will too if you don’t put something down to protect it like an ice axe or a pack over which you throw your rescue rope). 3rd person then throws their end of the rope with a figure 8 on a bite down to the victim (making sure the victim has a locking carabiner and can attach and tighten it. This is where it helps to have spare rope at either end of the rope like 3m+ otherwise the rope may need to be extended with a sling. 3rd person comes back to anchor, prusiking up rope. Another prusik is to be added to rope (in the same way that the first one was added) where person 3 is and this is attached to anchor. Rope between this prusik and anchor is attached to anchor with a auto blocking device to create part of 3:1. Rope is passed through this device and sent back up to 2nd prusik to finish the 3:1 with a pulley or a carabiner through the part of the prusik between the hitch and the knot. Then pull and keep pulling! Oh and remember to slide the prusik back down the rope towards the victim when it hits your auto blocking setup. If what I have written is confusing I completely understand and all I can say is take a course and it will all be clear. Or should I say it will become less hazy and you will have some idea of how it all works, I definitely feel like this is just the start and I have so, so, so much to learn. Bring it on! The week that was…. Where to begin… this week has been hectic, busy, crazy, stressful, full, fun, exciting, productive, useful and full of learning. We chose to meet up, all three of use before heading into the unknown to practise essential skills, bond as a team and finalise plans in person. Vancouver suited as it’s more or less Gabby’s home town and she was in town skiing and spending time with friends and family after completing her OPs one course. Nicole is planning on spending the rest of her winter somewhere in the mountains of BC and I’m relatively close in Aspen, Colorado Promptly upon arriving we exploded in Gabby’s parent’s apartment. Think gear, clothes, computers and all their attachments everywhere. Our first day we spent doing general research on weather, accomodation and other logistics. We skyped AJ (our in-country liaison) and , and figuring out how to use a few new items of technology. The skiing portion of this expedition is the easy part, attempting to film it and learn how to use some new bits of is definitely a challenge. Our heads all hurt after trying to make our first instagram story (epic fail) and the gimble just wouldn’t stay still. We reviewed our route options that we set way back in July and spent time looking at them day by day both on Google Earth and on topographic maps. We’ve tried extremely hard and the best/only maps of the At Bashy mountain range we can find are old Soviet military maps from the 1970’s. Contour lines are 1:100m so part of our route-finding will involve looking out for 99m cliffs. We’ve acknowledged that our number one route is probably very optimistic as it is most likely going to require a very technical ascent and descent from the glaciers. It is also going to require a very long weather window. We’re still keeping route options B and C in mind. Our hard work with all of our grant applications paid off and at the last minute The North Face came to the party to help us out. For the second year in a row we were runner’s up for TNF adventure grant but they were so stoked with our project that they decided to sponsor us with some gear! While waiting for our new ski and camping gear to arrive we took a day trip out to the Manning park area. We tried really hard not to follow the obvious skin track and navigate up a peak with just a poor map and our compasses. A recent rain event meant we also got to practise some really bad skiing that day and dig an interesting pit to study the snow’s stability. Our gear arrived on Monday and it was like Christmas as kids as we ripped open the boxes to find our new tent, sleeping bags and outerwear. We got to business setting up the tent in the lounge, lofting our sleeping bags and watching ski movies for inspiration in the tent after dinner. Slumber parties never get old. The last three days we spent out in the field testing all our new gear and technology. In line with the theme of the week we were running late and arrived at the Garibaldi provincial park car park at dusk. While this could have been viewed as frustrating, we mostly viewed it as great training. Nothing like skinning for 5 hours, in the dark, with 25kg packs on. We set up our tent promptly, cooked a delicious Backpackers Pantry meal and and went straight to bed, snug as bugs in our inferno sleeping bags. The next day we set out to do some skiing! After all, that’s what we love to do most. There had been quite a lot of snow lately, and up at higher altitudes it was skiing very well. We did some more pit digging and based on the results decided on a fun, lower angle ski to keep things safe. The snow was awesome but skiing powder with an outrageously heavy pack was quite tough. The technology was still giving us some headaches as we battled with the GPS most of the day and didn’t quite make it to our designated campsite. We decided we needed to set up camp by 3pm in order to get some rope work practise in and take some good quality photos and video before dark. Our goals were optimistic though as out tent setting up ability appeared to deteriorate with good visibility and after taking bets on how long it would take we all lost after about 40 minutes It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong right? Our stove seemed not to be working on our second night and after and hour of shaking, poking and nearly setting the tent on fire we gave up and surrendered to protein bars and some lukewarm, half cooked (but still delicious) chili. We’ve hopefully resolved this issue now and we’re looking forward to some warm meals in Kyrgyzstan!
Our last day we spent doing some more filming practice, more skiing on very bad snow and more navigating/GPS use. Overall it was an amazing week and we really did accomplish what we set out to do. We’re aware of our weaknesses as a team, what gear we still need to acquire, how cold we will be and how heavy our packs will be. Bring on Kyrgyzstan! |
AuthorMarian Krogh Archives
August 2019
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