The Clissold Report

The Mission

My unlikely mission this winter, made possible by the Patagonia dirtbag grant and Prior, is to travel from my home in Italy overland to the Tien Shan mountains to do some ski touring in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in true Slow Travel style. My simple mission is to minimize my impact on the environment while enjoying it in the manner I like most - on a split board. While doing so I hope to demonstrate that a slower, more human paced travel, is both more enjoyable and sustainable, and use my experiences and example to promote a more environmentally friendly form of adventure travel.

Dispatch 3 Kyrgyzstan is the land of superlatives par excellence. Instead of waxing lyrical about this fantastic country, let me just list some pertinent facts for ski tourers to judge for themselves: - Average height of Kyrgyzstan: 2750 metres - 40% of country over 3000 metres - 2 of the world's highest mountain ranges (including three 7000+ metre peaks) - At least 7 road passes open year-round above 3000 metres - First descents everywhere you turn Add to this the incredibly nice people and even more incredible price of beer, and this former Soviet Republic has to rate as one of the premier adventure ski touring countries in the world. All you need is time. And time, despite my slow travel ethic, was running out for Marco and I, as I have an orchard to plant and a donkey to purchase back in Italy this spring, and Marco, well, frankly Marco needs a break from the hard living lifestyle he has adopted here in the ex-USSR. We didn't have a lot to go on, but just looking at a map showed us that we could hardly go wrong (see above). Everywhere we went the mountains just seemed to get more spectacular and the touring possibilities piled on top of each other until Paul and I got sick of saying to each other "I am definitely coming back for an entire spring to explore just this valley/pass/glacier". Snow was a problem - we were too early for the late winter dumps which are when the real touring begins, but we did manage to get some fantastic turns. The standout was the area to the south east of Lake Issyk-Kol in the east of the country. We had been tipped off about a hot spring sitting at 2700 metres in a valley leading up to 5000+ metre peaks. There were reports of decent coverage and a warmish shelter (spending nights - including my birthday - at altitude at -25 Celsius had taken their toll on our enthusiasm for mid-winter camping in Kyrgyzstan), so we packed our bags and began the tour up the 18 km summer road to the "hotel". Not far into our tour we were passed by a man on a motorbike with a side car fashioned from a piece of ply wood and a random tire he had picked up somewhere, with his friend following in that always indefatigable 4wd, the pride of the Soviets, the Lada Niva. They stopped to see what we were up to. Of course, they offered us a ride. We loaded our stuff into the Lada and Paul jumped in there, while I got on the back of the motorbike. What followed next was easily the hairiest experience of the trip. The guy was a mad man, driving way too fast on a snowy logging road with huge dips, sharp corners and rather large boulders littering the sides. Oh, and don't forget the sheet ice we occasionally had to traverse. We soon lost the Lada, although at that stage I was too busy holding tight to worry about what was behind us, but my driver was not so conscientious. He was constantly looking up the mountainsides for animal tracks or friends who were also up here logging (which is what he had come up for). When he turned around slowly to me, smiled and said nonchalantly, with a calm that I was impressed with considering he was driving blind at 60km/h along a snowy, rocky mountain road, "Russki Extreme, eh?" and laughed, I would have laughed with him, but that would have assumed that I found it funny too. I was close to hysteria, but not hysterics. Russki Extreme indeed it was. Needless to say we made it safely, and they dropped us off just a couple of hours walk from the hot springs. The next days were full of the stuff of dreams. Touring in beautiful mountains, with easy day tours up to peaks nearing 4000 metres just out the door, bluebird weather and the hot spring always waiting for us at the end of the day (along with a couple of beers and a very decent plov or some such dish served by our toothless host). We could hardly believe that only a handful of tourer's come up here each year. A true hidden gem if ever there was one. But we had other places to check out, and for our last tour we headed south to one of the numerous high road passes found throughout the country. We once again stayed with a wonderful family, with sheep, horses, cows and chickens in the backyard and used this tranquil place as a base. Our last afternoon touring in Kyrgyzstan, after braving yet more cold weather, found us waiting at 3038 metres for our lift in a bitterly cold wind with no shelter in sight. Paul spotted a windlip just below the road. We might be ski tourer's, but our teenage days (despite being distressingly far away, at least for me) of jibbing at the ski hill flooded back to us. Paul: Maybe we'll keep warm hiking this hit? Simon: Hmmm. Why not? And so we hucked ourselves this way and that, a kind of celebration of all that had been in our adventure through the Tien Shan, hardly landing anything, but laughing and laughing at where we found ourselves, high amongst these unexplored mountains at sunset trying to do simple tricks we hadn't thought about for years. A fitting way to end our trip, with big grins on our faces and big plans in our heads: for we have hardly scratched the surface, and both of us (I can't speak for Marco here) can't wait to get back…… I would like to thank Prior for helping out with my trip, as well as Patagonia who kindly awarded me the dirtbag grant that forced my hand and gave me no choice but to stop talking and actually do it! And of course Paul for joining me in the Tien Shan and being such a good touring (and great drinking) partner. Cheers! Simon & Marco, Italy, March 2008

Dispatch 2 Our arrival in Almaty, the oil rich cosmopolitan city nestled at the base of the Tien Shan Mountains, was finally achieved 32 days after leaving Italy. I say 'achieved' because it truly felt like we had accomplished something. Even in these days, to travel through ex-soviet countries is to enter a Kafka-esque world where nothing is as it seems, where the bureaucracy is not troubled by such things as logic and every official behaves as if he has your fate in his hands, which in fact he does. Slow travel here is not an ideology, it is a necessity. Timetables are often more like wish lists; sometimes they don't exist at all. Queuing up for an official stamp can take all day, if you are lucky; more likely you will have to return next week. But we were here to snowboard, and now finally we were in sight of the 'Celestial' mountains all the frustrations, delays, arbitrary decisions, inexplicable events and vodka hang overs faded away. There were some huge mountains looming above us, and Marco (my Prior splitboard) and I, now joined by my good friend Paul Ellis, another split boarder who had come over from Australia, were going to make the most of them. Getting out of Almaty as quickly as we could, we found ourselves in a valley on a branch of the western arm of the Tien Shan, where it was rumoured that there was good snow coverage. To add substance to the rumour, we promptly got the car stuck in deep snow ruts shortly before arriving at our destination. What would be a normal occurrence in Canada – call someone up, get towed out – was to set the tone for our Kazakh adventures. We called the guesthouse and he promised to send someone down to help. What he didn't say was that someone would be on a horse. Galloping down to meet us, this local wasted no time. Tying his horse to the back of the car, and with us incredulous westerner's pushing the front, he pulled the car out and promptly galloped off without a word. We were speechless. I already loved Kazakhstan. The village was full of farmers and cowboys, with cows, sheep and donkeys roaming the lanes (no cars here in winter) and boys on horses galloping this way and that. No skis had made their way up here before, and what lay before us was big mountains, a patchy but adequate snow coverage, and access from our doorstep. The novelty of touring past cowherders – often little girls wrapped up in all their winter clothes – taking their cows out to drink, or getting stopped by cowboys wondering where on earth we might be going to with those big clunky sticks on our feet, wasn't quick to fade. The local inhabitants naturally thought we were crazy; we thought we had stumbled across a ski touring arcadia, literally a land of milk and honey and powder. And there was powder. We set high camp in a classic ski touring valley, with treed ridges climbing up into alpine bowls. The northern aspects had been spared the sun and the wind that had ravaged much of the other aspects, and were filled with a stable base topped with ankle deep powder. Add the small dump we had on the first night and conditions were perfect for exploring. While I won't exaggerate and say it was epic, the turns were sweet, the vertical respectable, the route finding challenging and the views breathtaking. Knowing we were all alone, that this was all ours, that no ski tracks had graced these mountains before and were not likely to do so again in the near future, made it much more than just a few days in the mountains. Well over a month into my journey the Tien Shan dream was slowly coming true, powder turn by powder turn. Coming back to the village after our days of camping, we were met halfway down by the son of our host, who had been sent out to look for us. With the cold temperatures and snowfall they were worried about these crazy foreigners, thus they had sent their son and his friend out to look for us on horseback. So we had a mounted escort back to the village. I will never forget skiing down the mountain path, which due to the horse traffic resembled a small mogul field more than anything else, with a big pack on my back and completely out of control (skiing on the split board skis is difficult at the best of times, and I can't even ski on real skis!), with horses riding next to us and everybody laughing and hooting and enjoying being part of a very unlikely spectacle. Arriving back in the village our host's were overjoyed to see us safe, and quickly prepared a huge feast. We stepped out of our skis into a Kazakh banquet, the most civilised way I have ever returned to civilisation after days of ascetic living in the mountains. If this is what ski touring in Kazakhstan is all about, then I might never make it home again...

Dispatch 1 After 12 days of travel across a good part of two continents finally I am putting my skins on my new board, getting ready for my first tour of the trip. It's a picturesque enough start: skinning up at a small orthodox church at 1500 meters deep in the Georgian Caucasus mountains. A 14th century monastery looks down on this godless ski bum, perched at 2200 meters on a little saddle of a long ridge heading north, into the greater Caucasus and Mt Kazbegi, at 5041 meters Georgia's highest mountain. But only the monastery is my destination today; a modest first day out after the idle days of traveling. Traversing around the small village at the base of the village, I quickly learn of the two biggest dangers of ski touring in Georgia: fresh cow manure and Caucasian sheep dogs. The first, despite the snow, is everywhere. The villagers' cows roam about during the day trying to scrounge whatever the can under the 30cm of snow. I can attest, for those without first hand experience, that fresh cow shit on skins does not help traction. Nor is it removed so easily...The second is the bigger danger - Caucasian sheep dogs are of medium to large build, vicious, stupid (although I wouldn't say that to their face) and completely out of control. Their owners have no real influence on their behavior, and thus you are on your own. If you get close to their cows or their sheep you'd better be prepared (read: heavily armed). They have two redeeming features however. One is their stupidity and general lack of awareness which makes them poor guard dogs and often allows you to skirt by them, and the second is the fact that once you get far enough away from their cows or sheep they will stop harassing you. So, smelling of cow shit and desperately trying to avoid a severe mauling, I slowly made my way around the village and started the ascent. But what of the 12 days before this? In fine slow travel style, I can assure you that they were not wasted. In the first six days, leaving from my home in north-western Italy and arriving in Istanbul, Marco (I have named my Spearhead splitboard Marco, as we sailed from Venice so the name was obvious. And since he is my only loyal companion on this trip, I thought it only fair that he have a name) and I had ridden through the streets of Genoa on a Vespa, seen the canals of Venice, traveled on trains, a boat, buses, metro and light rail, seen holy places of the 3 great Mediterranean religions, had a fair bit of fun in between, and we were still in Europe! After a couple of days in that still great metropolis of Istanbul, the real adventure began as we crossed the Bosporus and passed the priceless sign - "Welcome To Asia" - what an understated way to enter an entire continent! Unfortunately Marco missed this marker of a new stage in our journey as he was in the hold of the bus...After an undistinguished entrance to Georgia (we were left on a rainy night at a roadside truck stop/brothel 140 km from Tbilisi, about which the less said the better), our luck improved and we ended up here amidst spectacular mountains, amazingly hospitable people (where else does your arrival in a village street warrant a bottle of vodka and invitations to dinner?) and a passable early winter snow coverage. And so we reached the monastery for lunch. All around us silence, first descent possibilities beckoning, history and even, just below me on the other side of the ridge, war in the breakaway province of South Ossetia . A ski touring trip as part of a whole slow travel adventure, not detached from the world, but a part of it, sharing in the language and the culture and the music and the drink and the powder of the people and the mountains I visit. So far so good on my mission to the Tien Shan . With these thoughts in mind, I return to the valley, sweet if rusty turns in consolidated pow, untracked of course (will my tracks be the only ones this winter?), until towards the bottom where a farmer and his oxen watch my descent across cow paths and piles of steaming manure, probably thinking to himself 'I hope the dogs don't see him' or, more likely here in Georgia, 'I wonder if he's thirsty? I'll go and get that vodka just in case..'

Previous page