Five week
expedition in Kyrgyzstan.
Amazing country, new experiences, hard work and a little bit of climbing!
Amazing country, new experiences, hard work and a little bit of climbing!
When I packed my bag for this trip I knew it was an adventure into the unknown. Hard work while we could only hope for conditions to be good.
Our leader, Emily Ward has been on expedition around this mountain range before. This one mountain was on her mind. She had only seen parts of it before and there is only a handful of pictures to find. That was our main objective and this was our topo.
Three other British climbers were on the trip. Emily Ward, Harry Mcgie and Heather Swift. As the only swede I was psyched for an adventure with these tea-sipping alpinists!
We all met up at the Nomad hostel in Bishkek and were headed to the market to buy food for the next 30 days. That is a lot of food!
Next morning we started driving to the mountains.
The way from where we got dropped off to our glacier would take us over a week of walking and load carrying.
Me and Harry caught the standard stomach bug which forced us to hide behind big boulders several times a
day. I have never been this skinny in my life.
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| (Photo; Emily Ward) |
Acclimatizing.
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| (Photo; Harry Mcghie) |
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| (Photo; Harry Mcghie) |
As soon as we got better the load carrying began. Carry a bag, drop it,
go back, repeat. We made 5 more camps along the way before we got up to
the glacier.
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| (Photo; Harry Mcghie) |
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| (Photo; Emily Ward) |
A storm came in. But the bags still need to get closer to base camp!
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| The Majestic Pik Dankova |
After many days of not seeing any other life in the area. A nomad
hunter came to visit our camp. He did not speak a word of English but we
got to ride on his horse!
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| (Photo; Emily Ward) |
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| Bag on a bag |
Just have to cross this horrendous moraine.
Finally got to our base camp.
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| (Photo; Emily Ward) |
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| (Picture; Emily Ward) |
We watched, took pictures and slowly started to realize. This is impossible... Every possible line is threatened by a hanging serac. It is simply too dangerous to even walk anywhere close to it. During one day we saw seven avalanches on the face. We had to look at other options, still lots of things to do in the area.
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| One of many seracs breaking |
Harry on a ridge with pik Dankova in the background.
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| (Picture; Harry Mcghie) |
Me and Harry climbed a 5200m peak that we think is unclimbed.
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| (Photo; Emily Ward) |
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| Breaking base camp (Photo; Harry Mcghie) |
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| "Only the lazy go twice" |
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| The long but beautiful way home |
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| Waiting for the taxi (Photo; Harry Mcghie) |
It was fun to a wild place like this. Almost no information about the mountains, weather and conditions. An expedition like this is more about the adventure than the actual climbing.
Decision-making and tactics become so important. So many things can go wrong. There is no rescue if we have an accident, the food we brought is what we have and if something break we need to fix it.
Lots of patients required when going slow and heavy, but it's great as long as you have a good time along the way!
Big thanks to my friends that helped me to go on the trip.
