Summer, sun, ice and snow

You might guess I gonna tell you about some wintertime exploits. Well, you can’t get to that place in winter, though there is a way – you just need to dig a tunnel in 2-meter thick snow :-)

That’s why we climb on the Pogrebetsky Summit in September.
The weather is just fine, and there isn’t a single cloud in the sky. The sky is so blue you want to dive in as into the immense sea.
We get to Shymbulak ski resort by car, and then go on foot to the Mynzhilki dam. After a couple of serpentine roads, we pass by the turn to the Molodyozhnaya meteorological station and enter the sand arena in front of the Tuyuk su glacier.

It’s the afternoon, the sun pleasantly baking our backs, the tent set up, and the soup is nicely gurgling in the pot - such is the idyllic setting of our first day. By 8pm we get fully enwrapped by night, with its first stars and ermine eyes twinkling in the dark.
Slowly the moon is appearing from behind the Molodyozhny Summit. We have a walk before going to sleep, looking at constellations, watching stars and wishing the falling ones J Night temperature slightly goes down below zero. Our outfit, sleeping bags and the tent covered with polythene film hardly keeps us warm. Anyway, we fall asleep.
I get up the first. It’s still extremely cold outside – I try to wash my face but all I see around is ice.

Trying to warm myself up under first rays of the sun, I melt loaves of ice on my portable gas stove. We get to our breakfast and discuss our climbing plans.
We need to march off as earlier as possible, while bristly glacier surface has not turned into a running and babbling water flow.

Ahead is the Pogrebetsky Wall, the glacier sharply turns to the left towards Tuyuksu Summit, one push more and we are at the Tuyuk su Pass (2B, 4,100 m).

We whack into the rugged ice crust and step onto the Wall.A panoramic view of Tourist Pass and Ozyornoye Canyon opens up, and we can see the trail – a traditional tourist itinerary to the Issyk Kol Lake.

It’s a pure pleasure to walk on the Wall. The only thing, you need to keep to the southern edge, as the northern part contains lots of very deep and sometimes hidden splits.
When you need to maneuver on the rocks and ice and snow.
Right in front of the Summit, it seems that we are hitting it, but the relief is playing with us, keeping us away from our final destination point.

Two more tugs, and we are on the vast flat surface of the Pogrebetsky Summit (4231 m).

Its majestic pure white heaps of snow bridges the southern Tuyuksu glacier circus between Tuyuksu Pass and Locomotive Summit.

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