From Russia with g-love-s

I just read a friend's Facebook page. He described our recent adventures in Russia as 'Epic'! And he wasn't B-S'ing. He's a fully qualified mountain guide. There are probably ten or more stories you could spin off the trip, but I'll attempt instead to tell one coherent summary of what happened with no bias and strictly PC of course.

The start of the trip went well. The flight to Moscow, the transfers, the 14hr train ride to Kirov and the fact that I managed to bag a room to myself in the climbers' hotel. However things went quickly down hill on the day of the climbing. I, like Rob and Dennis, drew an early starting number and stepped out into the -28 deg C air with zero warm up and zero clue what I was doing. Some flash pump and some technical infringements (touching out of bounds areas) later and my climbing was over.

Team non-Russia meeting up in Moscow.


Later on I watched some very good climbers fall foul of the rules or fall from ice that was so brittle it fractured and fell apart with them hanging off it. But 'Bionic-man', Markus wasn't phased by any of this and went on to cruise brilliantly through the routes and win the comp. Needless to say almost all of the top 10 positions were held by Russian climbers. Now this isn't to say there was ever any split between us, but as 16 of us had travelled together to get there, it felt like Markus was one of us.

Markus, Herbert and Andrej getting cold.


The trip was such a big adventure for all of us in the 'non-Russian camp' that it was just a matter of time till the post comp party began. Guided by the wisdom of the Americans, Marc and Justin, people that were once well respected climbing machines soon became intoxicated drinking machines, lubricated by what the Russians called 'mineral water' (actually 40% strength vodka). In fact the bottles unbelievably even had plastic sports bottle caps like Powerade!

The culprit.


And so began the long and painful journey back from the comp.

For some reason, let's just say 'whatever' reason, we had all been booked on a train that only took us half way to Moscow. So at 2am, 16 of the world's best ice climbers stepped off the party train and into the -20 cold, in a totally random town in the middle of nowhere. The following 4 or so hours were a memory hiatus. No one really remembers what happened in that town. Eventually we got back onto another train at 6.30am that took us to Moscow. By the time we arrived, people's merry status had mysteriously transformed into hangover status and 16 half-asleep bodies hit the Moscow streets. Meanwhile I made a hasty exit in the direction of the airport to speed up the 'self-expediting' process from Russia.

Steve Mcqueen in Russia, aka Rob during our 4hr time warp.


All in all it was the most adventurous climbing competition trip I've ever done and the same could probably be said for all my companions. We had a hell of a lot of fun during our short but intense cultural experience. I have to say I learned little about climbing. But I learned tonnes about people. People I'd competed with in the past but never got to know. And as for the guys from Japan, probably the nicest I've ever met. Thanks for your company and for the Japanese language lessons and Japanese towel. For every competition from here on, I will ritually wrap my tools in a towel with Japanese writing on, that I have no idea at all how to read! But it will feel good none the less.

Thanks to everyone on that train, including the guys from the UIAA for making it an adventure I will never forget. And most of all to Pavel (Pasha) Shabalin and our Russian hosts for helping us massively through the trip. Including some fine cognac to help fight off the cold.