10. Will Walk for Food

After returning from our climb of Pt 5048, we had two days of anxious waiting before the pre-arranged horses were to arrive. Asel ensured us that the nomads would show up; there was just too much money at stake. The money they made off us - about $350/person (there were two of them) – is far greater than average yearly income in Kyrgyzstan (~$268). Maybe we overpaid, but we were in no position to bargain. We were still nervous wondering if they’d show up.

On the positive side, there were cleanup tasks to keep us marginally busier than regular days in basecamp: cleaning the stove, bleeding excess fuel, packing up trash, sorting gear. The rainy days continued as we waited impatiently for a chance to shower and wash clothes.

As Matt and I sat hunched over next to the river trying to clean a month’s worth of greasy grime off our pots and stove, four horses strolled down the hillside. We had asked for five since we’d only be taking one trip this time, but hey, they showed up. We were happy. We gestured to confirm that we’d head back over the pass the next morning since it was already 5:00 p.m. I hurried to prepare dinner – rice, potatoes, and cashews cooked in a chicken broth and topped with a tasty mixed spice that we were never able to identify. It had been a big hit among us before the last climbing foray, but the nomads barely touched it. Oh well.

We spent a few awkward hours lounging around, mostly unable to communicate with one another. The horsemen, this time a father and son, enjoyed our photos and video. We crawled into bed around 8:00 p.m. as it began to rain, the nomads sharing the communal tent with Chris. We loaned a sleeping bag and belay jacket to the son, who didn’t seem as comfortable in the cold. It rained and rained. I was up for long stretches of the night and was hopeful when the rain stopped around 2:30 a.m. The respite was short-lived, however, as the rain picked up again 15 minutes later. We had hoped to leave around 6:00 a.m. to meet Sasha at our pickup location at 10:00 a.m. I was up at 5:00 a.m. to finish packing what I still had laying about and Matt was up shortly thereafter. It continued to rain but we were hopeful the hearty nomads would still give it a go. We knew our Gore-Tex suits would keep us dry, so we didn’t mind yet another rainy walk.

The rain closed in shortly after the horses arrived.

By 6:30 or 7:00 we hadn’t seen the horsemen leave the tent. They called us in and told us to sit; we weren’t going anywhere soon. All five of us sat in the communal tent and sipped chai as the rain held steady and the minutes ticked by alarmingly slow. At one point I grabbed a bowl that we’d left outside the night before and found it filled with an inch of water. Around 9:30 we phoned Asel to inform her we’d be drastically late. She confirmed that the truck would be waiting for us whenever we got there.

By 10:30 everyone was fed up. A brief slow-down in the rain was enough to get us up and moving. It took another hour and a half to finish packing the bags and get the horses loaded. After a last-minute inspection for any remaining trash, we departed at 12:07, heading home at last. The walk back over the pass was tortuously dull. Low clouds fogged everything in as a light drizzle continued to dampen the mood. Not helping was my upset stomach, my constant companion for much of the expedition. We moved slow, worn by our previous labor, unable to keep up with the horses as we had on our arrival. After the 3.5-hour climb, we shuffled through the snow that had accumulated on the pass and then bolted down the other side as the rain and clouds began to clear.

Chris saw it first, Matt and I a few minutes later as we straggled over the hill above the pickup location: no truck. I’d used every last ounce of my energy on the presupposition that a truck would be waiting at the end. Now we just had one more twist in the journey.

We phoned Asel who said that the truck had been held up in deep mud about 40 km from our location. Fortunately, it was moving again and would get to us that evening or the next morning. We were told to stay put. So, we paid the horsemen their exorbitant asking price (20,000 som or $435) using all of our remaining som and dollars, spare 500 som we saved for a meal on the ride home, and sent them on their way back down the Kaichi. Luckily we had gone to the ATM before departing Bishkek.

Seeing no signs of Sasha, we settled in for the night, frantically pitching a tent as a severe wind and rain storm blasted camp. Because of the delay the nomads had wanted food earlier in the day, so we were down to about one dinners-worth of ramen and a few bags of nuts (we’d dumped and buried most everything else, besides a few things the nomad’s wanted for themselves). We hadn’t eaten more than a handful of nuts all day, but with no truck we couldn’t use up our last meal. We went to bed hungry. Wet, cold, and famished, I was in the most pessimistic state I’d been in all trip.

Throughout the night, the mix of the gentle rush of the Kaichi River and pervasive wind kept sounding like the rumbling of a truck engine, but as we awoke to sunny skies, nobody was there. I told Matt I didn’t think Sasha was coming, speculating that the bridge at Uch-Koshkon might be out. After all, when we’d crossed it on our way in, the dirt embankment leading off the bridge was partially washed out, remaining just a few inches wider than the truck needed. Matt chided me for being so pessimistic.

We waited until about 8:30 before phoning Asel. She managed to convey that, as I had suspected, the truck couldn’t get across the bridge, but Sasha was looking for horses. We informed Asel the horsemen from the previous day had taken all our money, but asked if Sasha could loan us money that we’d repay in Bishkek. In a complicated tangle of phone calls between Asel, Sasha, and us over the next few hours, we had horses, then no horses and would have to walk, then one horse, then potentially no horse and would have to get a helicopter! It was like a perverse game of telephone.

Matt and I remained calm, formulating a plan to haul as much of our gear as possible using Jamie’s bouldering mat as a sled and hoping to figure out any obstacles along the way as we got to them. We were confident that Asel and Sasha were doing everything they could (which they were) to remedy the unfortunate but faultless circumstance. Chris was a bit more frantic, unwilling to walk because we’d have to cross the Kaichi River. Despite our admonitions, he phoned Global Rescue and the US embassy multiple times, but neither was in a position to do anything other than arrange a helicopter that we’d pay for. By early afternoon, Chris relented and joined Matt and I in preparing to drag our gear out. We made a pile of all the non-essentials: propane tanks, stove, pots and pans, books, toiletries, radio, rope, Jamie’s spare harness, a large base camp tent, binoculars, and a duffel bag full of trash. Unwilling to part with our personal gear (climbing gear is expensive – it would have been more economical to pay $2000 for a helicopter), we were still laden with probably 400 lbs of stuff (we also had a large bag that Dan had left when he was evacuated). I was extremely unhappy leaving any trace of ourselves in the wilderness, even if there was already loads of trash lying around. In the end, we had no choice. With little food remaining, we needed to get out fast.

Around 1:00 p.m. we set off. There was a chance a single horse would be coming, but we couldn’t stand waiting around any longer. The going was SLOW. Within five minutes the rough road had trashed the bottom of Dan’s bag that I was trying to haul. Matt and I talked things over; there was no way we’d get out this way, it’d take days. Matt dropped his backpack and ran to get Chris who’d wandered off ahead. Begrudgingly, we concluded that a helicopter might be the only choice.

We phoned Asel again who told us we should call Global Rescue if we needed a helicopter, but that we should wait a few more hours to see if the horse would make it. Chris went back down the road to retrieve his bag. Instead of Chris returning, however, it was a horse! Matt let out a scream of joy and pumped his fists in the air - he was the most ardently opposed to relying on a helicopter. The horse, carrying Chris’ gear, came up to where we were standing. It was a sturdy military horse with a soldier from Uch-Koshkon. Not knowing our knowledge of the situation, he scribbled on a piece of paper to explain the bridge collapse. I saved the scribble as a nice memento of the occasion.

We loaded five large duffel bags onto the horse, making a run back up to our leftover pile to grab a few more items, although we still had to leave a fair bit. [Note: We arranged for and paid the soldier to return to get the remaining stuff, which we offered as a gift. We’ll never know if he actually went back, which will always bug me. I really hope he did because I don’t want another expedition to be put off by our mess.] The horse was heavily burdened and we each carried a heavy backpack. It wouldn’t be an easy 12 miles, but we’d make it. The soldier was extremely friendly and we chatted along the way as best we could. When we reached the Kaichi River, he ferried us across one-by-one on the horse. The water would have been chest deep; there’s no way we could have crossed it on foot that day and even in the morning it would have been a challenge. It took us six and a half hours to get back, but the soldier seemed impressed that we could keep pace with no breaks.

We strolled up to the gates of Uch-Koshkon, grinning, at 7:45 p.m. We gestured and talked with Sasha in the strange form of communication we had developed, learning that the embankment of the bridge had collapsed that morning as he was going over, the truck had been stuck, and the military had helped him free it. The commander of the base came out. In a good mood, he offered that we shoot his AK-47; he smiled and told me I was a good shot. Matt on the other hand, had never touched a gun and fired into the ground. We offered the soldiers the extra half rope from the pair that had been cut and Jamie’s bouldering mat, in which they seemed keenly interested. Chris gave the soldier who came for us his wristwatch and I gave him my binoculars. They were all smiles. Perhaps they were surprised by our generosity, but they’ll never know how happy we were to get help on the way out.

Matt and Chris sharing at lighter moment with the Ranger.

The entire walk back all we’d wanted to do was get in the truck and start the drive to Bishkek; we desperately wanted food and a bed. We wouldn’t have to wait until Bishkek though, as the commander offered us to dine with the soldiers and stay the night. On the menu, Marco Polo, fresh kill of the day’s hunt. We grabbed a few things and went inside the gates, likely a place where few westerners have ever set foot. Sasha, former military himself, stayed with the commander while we got a tour from the soldier who’d helped us (the 2nd in command of the 12 man post – I can’t remember his name, but the commander referred to him as a ranger so that’s what I’ll use here). Eventually, we made our way to the ranger’s private quarters. We sat in his living room while his wife presented us with an absolute feast: Marco Polo, bread, bread pudding, lard balls, milk, chai. Having had no meat for three weeks and little food in the last two days, it was disturbing how gluttonous we were. We couldn’t help it. As we ate, we were entertained by the ranger’s two young daughters, age 2 and 3, the proud owners of a new couch, a.k.a. Jamie’s bouldering mat. The ranger threw in the only English language DVD he had, some strange concert from the 1980s that was held in Moscow. It was paradise.

We finished dinner and the ranger had the other soldiers fix beds for us. We had a small taste of the comfort before the commander came in and offered us another meal! This time we went to the main kitchen and a huge mound of Marco Polo was presented on a platter in front of us. We ate as much as our already full stomachs would allow before calling it quits and heading to bed. A marginally comfortable bed never felt so good. All three of us lay there awake, caffeinated to our limits from the dozens of cups of chai we had sucked down. Off and on throughout the night I lay staring at the ceiling, unable to fully grasp the reality of our situation.

We were up at first light the next morning, Sasha anxious to get moving. We had another plate of Marco Polo with the ranger and commander. As we were leaving, we dug through our gear and gave them a balaclava, sunglasses, and a pair of gloves. They seemed a bit taken aback by our continued generosity, but the meal and bed were worth much more at that moment. We wanted to send them a package in the mail, but learned that the only way they can get things is to go to Bishkek or Karakol. We settled for giving the commander, who offered to take us hunting if we returned, our email addresses. Hopefully we hear from him.

We sped away, making fast progress in a slightly smaller truck than we’d ridden in before. Shocks were a welcome bonus, resulting in a much more peaceful trip. A broken hose delayed us for 20 minutes, but again it was no problem for Sasha. Reaching the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul by 2:00 p.m., we happily realized we’d make it back to Bishkek that night. After feasting on a plate of Manti, we took a dip in the warm lake while we waited for a van to meet us. Sasha had to turn right around and head back to pick up another group. Packed to the max, the van sped away. So close. At the Kyrgyz version of a highway rest stop, we phoned Jamie only to learn that Dan had moved his flight up - he had to get back to work - and would be leaving early the next morning. Our long awaited reunion would be short-lived.

We rolled into the courtyard of the apartment bloc at 7:45 p.m., ‘home’ at last. After unloading and a round of, we made the first quick attempt at showering away the grime before heading out for pizza and a beer. Delicious. We never got to eat our last four packs of ramen, but I’m certainly not complaining.

Mike