Bananas Don't Travel Well

brooding peakWinter had come early to Karakol, dusting the surrounding peaks with snow, chilling the air considerably, and limiting our trekking options. As multi-day treks over the passes were now out of the question (the summer yurt camps had been packed up for the season and we weren't interested in renting camping gear or hiring porters), we opted to walk up to Altyn Arashan, where basic guest houses serve as a base for day hiking. We left most of our gear with Gulnara in Karakol and took a marshrutka to the trail head, where we found a Dutchman and a young Japanese couple preparing to head the same way. Setting off together, we walked through a pretty village with kids cleaning the streets and painting the roadside tree trunks white. It was cool but sunny, perfect hiking weather.

Up to Valintino's place

Soon, we began to ascend up a dirt logging road following a river valley, and the birches and willows gave way to pines and firs. We were passed by a truck full of lumberjacks who waved as they drove past. After an hour, we stopped for a break and discovered that the Japanese couple were quite unprepared. They were carrying very heavy packs loaded with electronics, were unaware that our destination was 14 kilometers away, and had brought no food or water with them. We took pity on them and shared our rations.

A few hours later, as the road began to climb more steeply, we passed the lumberjack truck, parked by the side of the road, its occupants industriously downing bottles of vodka. They laughed and waved at us as we passed them by. We kept going up and up, the air got colder, the views up the valley got more spectacular, and we got more and more tired. We were (and still are) less fit than you might imagine: though Central Asian food had relieved us of a few pounds, riding in buses and cars hadn't exactly whipped us into shape. The last kilometer before Altyn Arashan turned perversely vertical, but just when we thought we wouldn't make it, we crested a hill and the valley of Altyn Arashan came into sight.

valley floorAltyn Arashan is less of a resort than a sprinkling of battered shacks clustered around a series of hot-springs pools covered by dank concrete bunkers, but the valley itself is beautiful—a bit like Rivendell—a grassy plain where herds of horses pasture, with a gushing river running through it and a glacier-capped peak at its head. On our way into the village, we were passed by the affable Valintino, who runs the Yak Tours guesthouse where we intended to stay, in his old Russian jeep. He ushered us in and sat us down. "Tea will be slow today," he warned us, "my cook, she is angry at me because I didn't come up yesterday with groceries." He left us to smooth things out with her, and we sat down, grateful to rest our sore feet.

Valintino's place was a bit like a boy scout camp, a very basic log-frame cabin with plywood beds in the rooms upstairs. Downstairs was a common room with a fireplace where everyone congregated. Some Germans who had come up the day before told us the food wasn't so great—probably a result of Valintino's failure to arrive with ingredients. But that night dinner was hot and filling: just what we needed. To follow it up, Valintino served us mead, "honey beer" as he called it, which was fresh and light, perfect after a day of hiking. It worked its magic, and we stumbled up to bed and passed out.

An early start

We got up early the next day. We were planning to hike up to a 3850-meter pass, from where we hoped to look down on Ala Kol, a small but reputedly beautiful alpine lake. Valintino had told us the round trip up to the pass, involving an ascent of almost 1000 meters, would take about eight hours; to be on the safe side we left early, along with the Dutchman we'd hiked with the previous day. This turned out to be the extent of our wisdom that day.

For the first hour the going was easy, as the path continued up the river valley on a slight incline. Though the sky was grey, we expected the clouds to burn off as the sun rose. After a while, the trail made a sharp right and climbed steeply uphill through a pine forest to the left of a small but fast-flowing tributary. Although we had a trekking map, it turned out to be lamentably lacking in detail, and as we climbed we kept picking up new trails formed by livestock that would peter out after a few hundred meters, leaving us looking around for direction. Nonetheless, we knew we had keep the stream on our right, so it wasn't too difficult to find our way.

Things get tricky

Eventually, we came to a place where our map indicated we should cross the stream. It was too full and fast to ford, and the only apparent way across was along a rough bridge made of logs and branches that felt as stable as toothpicks. But we made it across without incident and climbed the opposite bank, still following the river on our left.

By now we'd been going almost three hours and the clouds still hadn't burned off. As we passed the treeline into a jailoo, or pasture, the wind whipped up and it began to flurry. We kept going and, as we walked, the clouds started getting lower, until we came to an old corrall and they completely surrounded us. We discussed whether to continue, and decided to keep going for another fifteen minutes in hopes of it clearing.

We continued up a low slope into a boulder garden, where we encountered trekkers and porters coming down from the lake. They told us it was another 2-3 hours to the pass, but that it had been clear at the top. This sounded encouraging so we pushed on. By this time the snow was coming down a little harder, but still didn't seem that significant to us. But we were getting light-headed. I had been dragging my feet, wondering if I had another two hours of climbing in me (not to mention the descent back down), but suddenly got a burst of energy and felt suspiciously great: some combination of the altitude and endorphins finally kicking in were making me high.

Blizzard at the pass

whiteoutAs we continued, the visibility improved somewhat and the clouds lifted enough for us to see that we were getting close--there was a fairly steep slope, about 100 meters high, ahead and then we were sure we could see the final ascent to the pass. So up we went, only to find at the top, standing on a small plateau, that there were at least two possible ascents that could have led to the pass. We stood there for about fifteen minutes, looking at our crappy map that was fast losing its ink to the snow (note to self: always put the map in a plastic bag!), which was suddenly coming down very hard. Before long, we were in almost complete whiteout conditions and it was very cold. Chris, who had insisted back in Karakol that he didn't need to buy gloves, was starting to panic as his fingers turned to ice. Our Dutch friend (whose name I am sorry to say we never committed to memory) had gloves but insisted he was fine and didn't need to put them on. I was insisting that we could still find the pass... You can see how this was going.

When we couldn't see the mountains at all, I saw reason and conceded that, yes, we should go back down. We snapped a couple of pictures at the top, where we were by now in a full-fledged blizzard, and turned back. As we started down the slope, the full extent of our stupidity sunk in. In the fifteen minutes we had lingered, 20 centimeters of snow had fallen, blanketing the ground and covering up all trace of the path. It also made the going very slippery. Chris and I had, for a change, had the good sense to purchase trekking poles in Bishkek, and I now swear by them: they were indispensable in helping us stay on our feet that day. Our Dutch friend had borrowed a single pole from Valintino, but it wasn't enough to keep him vertical. He slipped and slided his way down, but made it to the bottom of the first hill without too much incident. We managed to convince him to put his gloves on, and he produced an extra pair of socks for Chris' hands. By now we were out of the wind, and the slope was much gentler for the next while, so we felt much more confident picking our way back from here. Nonetheless, our companion was having difficulty with his balance (we were all beyond exhaustion by this point) and kept slipping and falling in the snow. He was a very big man, and Chris and I were both nervous in case he hurt himself, as there was no way either of us could carry him.

We made it through the relatively open territory to the boulder field, where the snow finally stopped falling and the fog lifted, along with our spirits, revealing fresh, white, stony peaks all around us. The going was getting better and the landscape became very pretty, with buttercups poking their heads out of the snow, and fresh animal tracks beginning to appear. But we weren't clear of danger yet.

Lost!

I could die up here!We came to a place where we knew the walls of the stream came together in a small gorge. On the opposite bank was a giant pile of rubble, the result of some past landslide. We followed what we thought was the path further into the gorge than I remembered coming. Though we agreed that the trail had gone up over a hill above the river at that point, none of us could agree as to where it had come down (and consequently where we should go up). It didn't help that snow still covered the ground, and there were numerous cow paths going in all different directions, nor that we were all tired and still affected by the altitude. Everyone's nerves on edge, Chris and I argued about which way to go. In the end, the Dutchman sided with me, and we went my way. I was sure we had missed the trail going up, so we turned back, and followed a cow path up the hill. We climbed and climbed and climbed, and finally found a well-established trail. Here we rested and had a snack before continuing. I led us along for several hundred meters; at first we all agreed that this seemed to be the right way: it was clear and wide and seemed to be going the right way. But then it started to narrow, and eventually was lost in a maze of junipers. We stopped, looked around, and then got a sinking feeling: we spotted the jailoo and corrall that we'd passed on the way up, far below us. We were separated from them by a steep slope, covered in junipers, with no clear way down.

Chris was, understandably, really pissed off. I was feeling stupid. We all just wanted to get out of there. Chris led us slipping and sliding down the hill, cursing the whole way. But we made it without incident. I apologized; we agreed the important thing was that we'd made it. From the jailoo, the main remaining obstacle was to find our way back across the stream. We were nervous about crossing the toothpick bridge again, so we made our way down to the banks further upstream to see if we could find a better crossing. Here, the stream was wider and shallower, with lots of rocks poking up that could be hopped across. With our companion's long legs and our trekking poles we picked our way across without too much difficulty.

Safe and sound (and still married)

Safely on the other bank, we all breathed a sigh of relief, and visions of spending the night freezing on the mountain dissipated. The sun came out revealing majestic views up the valley, and though we still had another hour or so of descent, it was relatively easy to make our way down the muddy hillside. We returned to Altyn Arashan, where Valintino had dinner and tea ready, followed by mead, of course, and once again went to bed thoroughly exhausted.

back to greeneryThe next day, we decided we'd had enough winter adventures for a while, and headed back down the valley toward Karakol. We left Altyn Arashan in the sun, and the snow that had fallen the previous day melted away. It was nice walking, even on our rubbery knees, with views up the valley behind us and a clear view ahead toward the snowy mountain ranges of Kazakhstan. On the way, we encountered the porters we'd seen the previous day, sitting in a patch of marijuana, enjoying a blissful reward for their toils.

Back in Karakol, we stayed another couple of days with Gulnara, did our laundry, and played cards while we regained our strength. The weather turned rainy and cold the second day, so we headed out the next by marshrutka, express this time, back to Bishkek.