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Check out the previous story on the Mountain.RU: Ergaki. Zub Drakona (Dragon's fang), 2021m Portfolio Tuva. "Vostochny (East)" peak and two "heroic" climbers face to face

 

 

Ergaki 2003 - Thoughts Aloud

“Mum, terribly! Stop, effing thing!”- this I said to the sky hook. “Tension! Hold more strong - the hook is falling out!”- and that I said to Boom who was belaying me. I did not want to fall: there were 5m of the abrupt smooth rock that I had hook punched and climbed with sky hooks. The punch was a little bent, and sky hooks did not want to sit in "crooked" holes. But ahead, up to the bolt there still was a pair of meters of "hookking" and a pair - of the relief. And all of that occurred on a northeast face of Zvezdny (Starry) peak, that in Ergaki range (Western Sayan Mountains). We were climbing Khvostenko route, 6A. It is the most complex for today route in Ergaki. We were making the second pitch- a site of 20 meters VI - the most complex category, AID climbing A3. It means that the leader had to move loading the points (sky hooks) with all his weight and in case of falling a flight about 10-15 meters is provided for him. Last belay point we created from three half hammered bolts, having blocked them. In total it took us 2.5 hours to climb 20 meters of the wall.

“The rock hammer HAS BROKEN”, that I said to myself. And then I said the same to Boom downward. And this bad thing occurred on the same route, only on the next pitch. And here you don't have to use sky hooks but just have to make very clean free climbing basically on friction and crimpers on the VI-wall at the general steepness of 75 degrees, where the good edge for putting normally your foot is a big rarity. I brake my "Cassin" hammering a bolt at my own risk (the head broken off the iron handle). It was not clear what to do further. It was terrible to stay on the wall without a hammer, but I could not get a new one via the fixed rope: because of my foolish habit I had clipped the fixed rope together with safety rope in the first hook; and I could not descended.

After some doubts I dared to climb upwards. In half an hour having climbed 10 meters more I stood clipped to a bolt on a "good" ledge (the ledge is good when it is possible to step all foot on it and to enfeeble your toe). This half an hour was one of the most intense in my life. Due to the probability to fall on 30-40 meters I forced myself to reflect about eternity and to make ideal clean climbing - each step, each move I analysed, felt and only after that I made smooth, fluid, but thus very intense, movement. Each moment the body was ready to react to the slightest suspicious movement of the tips of my fingers or sliding of my foot. Any change in the world around is fixed; all organs of sense become tense and longer after the ascent painfully react to loud sounds and sharp movements. In three hours our ascent ended: Weather deteriorated, we could not have time to reach a shelf on which it was possible to spend the night, but a principal cause were my frozen kidneys which had an effect at cooling my organism.

“Hold, dear, hold me”, this I said to the edge which did not inspire me with confidence, and, seemed was nearly fell off. This was going on a route 3À on Ptitsa (Bird) peak, south-east face.

I decided to climb solo this route without belaying. Just in case I had a rope and some gear in my backpack. The complex sites began right at once, and the most complex - in the middle of the route: there were not enough edges, and the some of them were dangerous: they could break off, though it was a rarity on local granite rocks. Right on such edge I nearly thought about breaking style and self-belaying, but, eventually, I put myself together and clearly but fast climbed the complex site. In an hour I was sitting on the top, happy and pleased, in next, seventh time. I would like climbing in such style: nothing prevents, nothing distracts from the process of climbing and it more reminds a rocky race jogging. It looked like the ascent on any of Krasnoyarian Stolby (Columns), only more than in three time longer.

Just when I was on top, the clouded sky cleared a little, I could see Boom and Alex on the top of Zvezdny peak - they climbed Zvezdny peak via 3B route and summited simultaneously with me. We had a word loudly and then began descending. Having descended, I found out that the time of my ascent took hardly more than 2.5 hours though it seemed to me that it passed about 5 hours. For all that the perception of surrounding world varies, when you get in an extreme situation

“Our season seems to be somehow unsuccessful”, - we were lying in the tent, and rain was knocking on it for two days.

We had no wish to go out and we basically slept. It turned out, that for a week we managed to start to climb one route of 6À and two ones of 5À, but no route we climbed up to the top. We had no enough health to climb 6À. Climbing Ptitsa peak on 5À route we got the wrong way and descended. Having fixed two ropes on "Kamin" (Chimney) on Zvezdny peak, we had to descend because the absolutely deteriorated weather next day, and since then we, tired and sad, were staying in tent. We only fulfilled one promise - actually each serene day climbed somewhere, and were in a condition “resting nose against a granite wall”. All right, I was unlucky in this year, But Boom was much more unlucky at all - he had to bail because of different reasons winter ascents on Semenov-Tienshansky, 5B, and on Svobodnaya Korea, 6A. Probably the God, I hope, temporarily, don't look for us. Next day we descended and went home, and again we had a problem: there were no tickets for a train, and we went by electric trains. Here is such a sad history.

Participants of this disgrace: Boom - Bumazhenko Andrey, Phil - Filatiev Oleg (the author of this article), Alex - Alexey Kitchkailo: my separate thanks him for rear support. All of us are the members of mountaineering club of Tomsk State University.