Five years ago to the month I was in Kyrgyzstan, and among other adventures I tried to arrange a mountain guide to visit some of the peaks visible to the south of Bishkek. August is peak tourism season and most of the guides were occupied elsewhere so it wasn’t to be. Additionally, I had good trekking and camping gear with me, but no real mountain gear which made arrangements even more difficult. I did however take this idea for a trip home with me

This was taken from a basic and pictorial guide book called Forbidden Mountains, and this page remained a poster on my wall in the years since. It shows the routes up Peak Korona, which in Russian like Scandinavian languages means ‘crown’. There are about six individual rock towers atop Korona, and the second being the least technical seemed like an appropriate place to begin.

I’d planned to do some alpine climbing before coming here and had been collecting gear accordingly, hence all my excess baggage (for which I somehow escaped charge). The only item I hadn’t brought was an ice-axe, figuring I could find one here easily enough. There are a couple of gear stores selling gear imported from Europe, but the real surprise was gear available in the ramshackle bazaars. Since shortly after September 11, 2001, the US have maintained a base here out at the international airport. The base is used as the northern air supply line into Afghanistan, which is located two countries south from here. For some reason the US brought over a bunch of climbing gear, including Black Diamond Camalots, crampons and ice axes, Omega Pacific karabiners, and Bluewater rope and cord. From time to time this gear shows up for sale in the bazaar at hugely discounted prices, apparently having been lifted from the base! I picked up this BD Raven axe and Omega biner for about $20. The axe alone retails for around $100 in the US, and so at least $150 in Australia. The gear is brand new

But back to the story. After arriving I decided to look into hiring a guide and quite by coincidence I walked back to the same guiding company I’d visited five years earlier! This time I was fortunate enough to meet the director, Vladimir Kommissarov, who is a very well respected personality in the local climbing community. I showed him the photocopy that had been stuck to my wall for several years and sitting on his bookshelf was the same copy of the book, which to my surprise he lent to me. After describing what I was looking for, to my further surprise he offered to put me in directly contact with experienced English speaking guides around my own age cutting out his own business and the extra charge it would include. A week or two later I received a call from Misha, and we arranged the following trip for Korona’s second tower. The timing was impeccable as the early stage of the research had been productive and I was then awaiting the translations.

Ala-Archa National Park is about 40 minutes drive from the city. The road in is scenic and ends at around 2000 m elevation (Bishkek is around 780 m). From the road end a trail leads up a side canyon passing through the fir forest and rising to the meadows high above the Ak-Say River

As the trail sidles around views to the alps high above are visible between the rocky tors closer

Crossing a pretty stream strewn with granite boulders and clean enough to drink, the last patch of forest follows shortly after and makes a nice shady rest on hot days. From here the second half of this section rises sharply following an old moraine past a kilometer or so of broken granite crags of varying quality and between perhaps 20 m and 100 m high. These can be divided into maybe five sectors and there is potential for hundreds of single and multipitch routes. Most of these will probably never be developed, and several of the obvious lines have probably been climbed before. But Misha seemed to know everything about the local climbing scene and is of the opinion that less has been done than you might imagine. But more on this below.

After about four hours walking we arrived at the Ratsek hut, named after a famous Russian alpinist and sitting between some granite crags and a steep moraine at around 3,200 m elevation

There is a pretty camping area right below the hut too

At this altitude the fun begins as your body tries to adapt to the reduced amount of oxygen available in the air. The atmosphere comprises around 21 percent oxygen, but as barometric pressure drops the amount of available oxygen also drops. On top of Mt Everest, at almost 9 km above sea level for example, there is only around one third of the amount of oxygen available at sea level. Most people start to notice the affects after maybe 3000 m, where the available oxygen is around 70 percent of sea level. This link provides some interesting information on altitude sickness, and 02 calculators. I’ve also heard that barometric pressure changes with latitude, which means climbing Kahn Tengri would be more difficult than an equivalent 7,000 m peak in say Nepal.

Obviously physical exertion makes it worse, so after carrying the pack up the hill I felt sleepy, a little drunk and needed to take a nap. This is why they always demonstrate the oxygen masks on airplanes – if the plane loses cabin pressure at 10 or 11 km above sea level, the reduced oxygen would send everyone to sleep in a matter of minutes and kill them shortly after. Not that 3000 m is anywhere near that dire, you just need an occasional nana nap. I felt worse by evening with shortness of breath, headache, loss of appetite, and also loss of conversation which was a shame as camping there that night were the first other travelers I’ve met since being here. Perhaps the most annoying thing with the altitude however is sleeplessness despite being really tired. The sunset and alpenglow were pleasant, however – looking west…

…and east

Complaints aside, your body adapts to the altitude quickly and I was feeling much better by morning. A doubly pleasant surprise was that my guide also thought it his duty to cook and do the washing up! The next day’s ascent was a little shorter so we stopped at the top of the ice-fall on the glacier at around 3,500 m for some exhausting cramponing and ice-climbing exercises. The middle of the ice-fall

The next part of the walk in was up an impossibly unstable moraine…



…to the upper valley, relatively flat bottomed with the Ak-Sai Glacier and surrounded by an amazing cirque

Travel now was on the glacier so it’s necessary to rope-up in case of crevasses

A kilometer or so later, approaching the Korona Refuge, the rustic upper hut in the last of daylight. The farther end of the cirque is visible on the right, and our objective is kissed by the last of the sun

The moon setting over the craggy cirque, and Peak Ak-Too (4,612 m)

And the refuge, Hotel Korona a little worse for wear, but… location, location, location!

All mod cons…

But apparently frequented by a predominantly male clientele

After another altitude – and squeaking mouse – affected evening, we suffered a mild alpine start of five am rise for 6 am departure. The Korona Refuge is around 3,800 m elevation, and it was 0 degrees inside in the morning.

A short flat section is barely sufficient to allow the coffee to digest before the steep ascent begins. Groggily tying in at the base of ascent

En route…

…and a little higher

The ascent is long but pretty straight forward requiring use of crampons but not ice-axes until the bergschrund (crevasse at the head of the glacier) and final ice slope above

The ice slope varies from about 30 to 45 degrees, and took three short pitches protected with ice-screws to gain the col (saddle). The altitude was about 4,600 m and the air temp had dropped to about minus 5 making resting and belaying instantly chilly. After front-pointing (cramponing technique for steeper slopes which burns your calves) up to the col, I was exhausted and took another nana nap in my big downie to muster the energy for belaying the final mixed pitches. The view from the col back down the glacier we just climbed

From the col we made three short pitches of mixed climbing with both rock and ice protection. The rock grade was easy, perhaps around 12, but doing the moves in heavy boots, crampons, with a pack and at altitude made me really happy to not be leading. The most exciting moves traversed out over a couloir dropping hundreds of metres to the glacier on the much steeper back side of the crown. Feet were front points in the ice with only an edge lay-back for the hands and a single old piton for protection!

Misha made the moves with style and a cool head before bringing me up on a nice belay to the summit snow cap. Finally, the summit, at 4,750 m

And the view back down to where we’d come from (and had to return!)

Unfortunately the summit is only half way, and it’s a really long way back down to the road end – almost 3,000 vertical metres and 40 horizontal kilometres! Some hardcore Soviet alpinists can do this trip in a day or two, but with my newfound penchant for nana naps I could only make it back to Hotel Korona that day, to my sleeping bag, 12 hours after leaving it and then hardly moving for another 12! I did manage a few more pics on the descent than ascent, and the light was a little better too. The first part of descent involved traversing the steeper ice slope. To save time this would ordinarily be soloed, but with a run-out into the bergschrund I was more comfortable to use the rope which made about four slow pitches

With the bergschrund safely crossed, the snow had softened a little in the sun making ideal conditions for the hike back down the glacier. Even so, the whole ascent of around 1,000 m and then descent took 12 hours. The second tower sits alone in the middle, right above my left eye

Alpenglow on the upper cirque from Korona Refuge

And posing outside the Korona Refuge next morning

Two new routes for Kyrgyzstan!

And the icing on the cake was two new rock routes for… well for the dearth of Kyrgyz rock-climbers. But two new routes nevertheless, and my first ‘first ascent’! It was a completely different head game to regular traditional climbing. Just a few small pieces of info like the fact the route has been climbed before, so the rock quality can be vouched for and possible loose blocks pre-trundled, as well as having some indication of the difficulty makes a huge difference. In this case it was a matter of choosing a line from the ground that looked protectable, racking up, tying in, donning a helmet and hoping for the best! First up Misha chose the line you can see trailed by the rope. He reckoned it was about grade 4 in the UIAA scale, which is 14 or 15 in Australian grades. Protection was good, but he was suspicious of the big flake/block at mid height. There’s a great big belay ledge atop the first prominent crack you can see, and potential for a nice sport route on the face of the pillar. So now there is a two-stroke hammer drill added to my grocery list! I seconded his route and it was great with a nice little crux section at mid height and right trending finish to belay ledge and scree slope walk off descent

Next up was my turn so I chose the next feasible looking line to the right, indicated by the red line

The wide angle lens used on these pics distorts the perspective a little, but the routes are about 20 metres long with a little (~5m) run-out top to the belay point. The first crux was down low (about mid height in the photo), but the right tending flake took wires and cams adequately, past an unfortunately loose chockstone, with lay-backs and good feet to the jugs top and an easy mantle (if there is such a thing). The next few metres were an easy ramble before some more good gear and a short tip-toe past two or so television sized loose blocks! A nice big cam went in under a flake which led to the real crux of the route in the last two metres or so consisting of a slightly overhanging twin crack system. The left crack was flaring and unprotectable, but the right had a number of smaller flakes wedged inside it, into which I inserted my nice shiny new #1 Friend (thanks Luke!) equalized with a small wire on my last sling! Legs trembling I made the lay-back move past my gear on lichenous feet to an akward slightly horizontal and backwards mantle to top out! Hard to described, but I was much relieved to be at the top with just enough gear left to build a belay. I reckon the route was about grade 15 or 16, and I think I’ll call it ‘Na-pra-vah’ which is Russian for ‘to the right’ as in the direction, which was the most recent word I added to my small Russian vocab and the route was to the right of Misha’s. Name, grade, and egoistic posterity aside, it was super exciting to have experienced climbing new route, and there is just so much more to do there. Misha is of the opinion that with bolts and a guidebook it will see a lot of traffic too! Kyrgyzstan is awash with foreign money and good intentions peddling everything from better capitalist enterprise to better eyesight to better gods (yup, heaps of evangelical nutters unfortunately – click here for some interesting papers on this topic). Forget about curing preventable disease, what the Kyrgyz really need are bolts, hammer drills and quickdraws people! At least one NGO seems to agree.

And finally, after a big weekend, almost back down to the road end with my wonky load, and the view past the (hopefully) soon to be developed crags back up to the alps



The next adventures

The ascent of Korona’s second tower that we did this weekend is graded 2A in the Soviet scale, which maxes at 6B. Everyone had said it is a really easy trip, even soloable, but the scale only takes into account technical difficulty, which in this case was basically only the final sections we used ropes for. Not taken into account is the length of approach, nor the altitude which certainly make things more difficult. For my next trip I’m thinking something lower, shorter but slightly more technical

The right most couloir to snow ridge in this pic is on Peak Teketor (4,480 m), and goes at 3A in the Soviet scale. If conditions are right we might check it out in a couple of weeks (when my legs finally regain full movement!) The valley also contains some amazing granite towers with established multipitch routes. The red arrow points to Schwaba, an eight or so pitch 400 m trad line with individual pitches between grades 15 and 18

This is Schwaba viewed from Ratsek hut and in relation to Korona Peak

Trip is tentatively planned for late September, though it will depend on the conditions in the meantime… Can’t wait!