Krygyzstan Part 1 - Bishkek

11/07/2018

Take 1 - Ala Archa

After only a few hours of broken sleep I left the hostel in Bishkek at 7.15 and went to find the bus that would take me to the Ala Archa national park. Took a few enquiries, wielding my destination scrawled on a bit of paper, but I was eventually on my way in an occasionally packed out mini bus, and rocked up at the entrance to the park around 10. I'd chosen to hike up one of the small mountains on the edge of the bigger stuff, hoping it would be good platform to break through any inversion and enable me to follow the ridge lines onto the bigger peaks. Starting out at the entrance of a steep valley with glimpses of the jagged snowy peaks obscured in the distance, it all looked a little intimidating.

I left the road and began the climb up easy grassy pastures. The going quickly toughened however as I found myself in beautiful but heavy going meadow with sharp plants and flowers reaching above my knees. The smells of wild mint and whatever else were fantastic but it was hard work! And it got worse. The meadow giving way to small bushy trees with sharp spikes that were even harder to pick my way through.

On the way up, there was already a big anvil cloud dumping rain out in the valley, and as that passed, rain filled the gorge deep in the mountains and i was hit by the gust front as I neared the ridge line. By the time I summited (at 2700m - much higher than I'd expected to climb!) at 12 the day was deteriorating - rain in the valley, clouds darkening in the mountains. I thought I'd just sit it out and hope it would settle down in the evening. Well....there was a window of opportunity around 2 when the skies did brighten but by the time I'd got myself ready (takes forever when you have to pack all the kit away!) things had worsened significantly. The whole valley was rapidly filling in with big hazy thundery clouds and the mountains had darkened again. So I continued to sit it out, still hoping for a mellow evening. Time passed, things didn't improve, so I figured I may as well camp out and hope for better the next day. The weather where I was having been pretty good (except for the gust fronts that occasionally swept through), with squalls passing through deeper in the mountains and showers out in the valley.

My only issue was water, and the lack of it. The nearest source was a river at the bottom of a gorge, a steep 500m descent, but I had no choice. I left my stuff in an untidy pile, but half way down light rain started to fall; shite - my stuff! That spurred me on and having filled my bottles (I was glad to have a 2l bladder and my 1l platypus) I made good time getting back up (too good I would later find out) and fortunately my gear wasn't too damp. I was just in time though, barely seconds after I'd got back the rain really did move in and I had to stuff my gear under the tent while I pitched over it (the downside of a tent which uses your hiking poles - you can't leave a basecamp!)

Water. Downhill from here...

Still smiling

And that was the beginning: the rain got heavier and the wind increased. I got a proper battering. My tent however was rock solid - I was super impressed and thankful! To add to the excitement, later on the thunder and lightning arrived. Camped on top of a mountain, with two metal poles pointing to the skies and lightning flashing around you, doesn't make for a comfortable experience. I think / hoped it was out in the valley however.

To top it all off, I started to feel a bit queasy, and queasier, and...BLEURGGHHH! Out went dinner. And that unfortunately continued for the rest of the night.

The rain and the wind did eventually ease off in the early hours, and the sun was shining in the morning. I was feeling decidedly ropey but at least my bowels had settled down. I think it was altitude sickness. I felt fine but it was probably the extra exertion of my water foray (on top of lugging 25kg up a mountain) that scuppered me. The day was already panning out like yesterday so with no desire to go through that again I  packed up mid morning and had a very sinky, quite rough glide back out of the mountains. I was pretty much flying in the lee of the big mountains and without much thermic activity to counter it. I did try working a bit of a thermal out in the valley but it wasn't much fun. I'm also really heavy (too heavy!) on my wing and it does feel different.