chossclimbers

Go back to Russia.
Go back to Bilibino.

Vadim picked us up the following morning for a quick drive out to the edge of town where we met our off road driver (not the “da, da, da” guy from the day before), or two of them in fact: Sergey and Uktam; as well as the other star of the show, a 10 ton, 6 wheel drive Kamaz. After a quick tea, we threw or junk show into the back and all four of us climbed into the cab. After some 40 kilometers of good dirt road driving, we turned off onto a rough track and headed off in the direction of the mountains (way too early based on what Evegeny had instructed). What followed were about 6 hours of river crossings, abandoned gold mining operations, improbably steep ridge climbs and descents, boulder field drives and finally getting the Kamaz nearly stuck in a “soft” and shifting boulder field. It was at that point that both Sergei and I got out and walked ahead for a little reconnaissance. My 30 minute hike took me up to a pass where I thought I was looking at the backside boulder fields of The General and The Commander formations some 5km away but of course I could not be sure. To get there, we’d need to backtrack down the ridge we’ve just driven, drop down into valley, go up over the next ridge and then go into and up the next valley over. Sergei however was still missing at that point and Uktam was getting impatient, blaring the horn and then firing his rifle into the air. When Sergei finally came back, he insisted that he found a way despite our protests that we should probably cross over to the next valley.

.

Well, given that they had the truck keys, things went their way and we meandered our way up an incorrect valley to a spot where the mining “road” crossed a nice stream. Yet again, I thought that we were looking at the backsides of the two formations from some 5km away (and well below). We unpacked our shit, had a cup of tea with them and then they left. Alone in the middle of nowhere – I don’t think we’ve ever been this isolated from humanity in the past. Besides Sergei and Uktam, the last human activity we had seen was in the mining establishments along the main road some 4 hours driving time earlier. We could only hope that they would remember where they had left us in a week.

Next morning, we decided to leave the climbing gear behind and hike up to the pass at the head of the valley to see where the hell we were. The boulder hopping took us about two hours. From the “pass” at the head of the valley we were in fact looking down into the cirque formed by The General and The Commander (and the two protrusions of the boulder field visible from camp were the backsides of the formations). We hike around for another hour looking for a way down into the cirque as that descent would be required to access the climbing.

Photos

Go to Our One Climb.
Go back to Russia.