16 px

Pos. Mondy — b. Irkut — lake Ilchir — GMS — Dikiy pass — r.

Sagan-Sair — r. Kitoy — stream. Zhalga — pass — r. Ara-Oshey — r.

Ara-Khubyty — Khubyty pass, 2,438 meters — village. Nilova Pustyn. The length of the route is 240 kilometers, duration is 16–18 days. I was reminded of him by a letter received from Moscow tourists: “…”

Your note from the Khubyty pass was removed on July 31 at 12:00. Our group of the Kalinin Tourist Club of Moscow, leader I. Sinitsin, made a hike of the IV class. in the Tunkinsky Goltsy area.

We wish you new, interesting travels…” The letter is only a few lines on a quarter sheet of paper, but the last words: “…Your note was removed from the Khubyty Pass…” evoked an avalanche of memories. At that moment, we remembered our own campaigns, and among them the same crossing over the main ridge of the Tunkinsky loaches.

It was the fourteenth day since the start of the campaign. On this day we managed to cover only 12 kilometers. Wet, thick snow fell all day. As soon as you stopped for a moment, the wind penetrated under your clothes and pierced you to your bones.

By the end of the day we reached the border of the forest. Further there were only mountain peaks covered with a blanket of snow. After looking around, we chose a place for camp. And in the morning, as soon as dawn broke, we walked again, drowning in deep snow, slowly moving towards the as yet invisible pass.

Gradually the walls of the canyon moved apart, and a wide trough-shaped valley opened up in front of us. The pass is already very close. The snow, compacted by strong winds, is as strong as asphalt, but in some places it turns out to be a little weaker, and then you fall to your waist. In these cases, with a heavy backpack on your back, it is simply impossible to get out without the help of your comrades.

Slowly, very slowly, the seemingly so close pass is approaching. After every hundred steps — a few minutes of short rest, change of leader — and again ten, twenty, hundred steps… We fall straight into the snow. But we still get up and wander, exhausted, forgetting that around us is the unique, enchanting beauty of the mountains.

It’s there, later, but for now… We move in single file, one after another, we see only the legs of the person in front and mechanically step into the next. Finally, with our last breath, we reach the pass. A few steps — and breathtaking pictures opened before us.

Bizarre outcrops of weathered rocks, like impregnable guards, guarded the pass. Below lay deep gorges, and in front, as far as the eye could see, were endless chains of mountains, frozen in their silent grandeur. We experience happy moments of a difficult victory, the joy of a dream come true. The pass saddle is quite extensive.

Its height above sea level is 2,438 meters. In a stone tour near the trail we take a note from a group of tourists from the Irkutsk Polytechnic Institute who passed here a month ago. A strong wind with snow whips our faces. The movie camera froze and there were no spectacular “polar” shots, as happens most often.

We leave our note on the tour and quickly leave the pass along the path down. And almost behind us, the pass is covered by a thick veil of low-lying clouds. Just at the pass the wind was knocking you off your feet, and half an hour later there was unusual silence. We were often amazed by the contrasts of the highlands.

In the middle of the day we reached the forest border again. Here the snow has already melted and the first greenery is timidly emerging in the sunshine. The Khubuta stream flows in a deep canyon, unexpectedly ending with an eight-meter waterfall. A well-marked serpentine path rushes down.

Now we are already walking on a springy carpet of moss and lingonberries. We stop to enjoy last year’s berries. Tasty! Perhaps it is only now that it is beginning to dawn on us that the hardest part is behind us.

We settled down for the night in a light birch grove. We drank life-giving birch sap with pleasure and sat around the fire longer than usual. The deep snow, the cold of the night, and the wind that mercilessly whipped us at the pass had already receded into something far, far away in our consciousness. The leader of the group, Vladimir Zharnikov, jokingly sings: “I wish I could see these mountains on TV”…

But we know that he won’t sit in front of the TV. He will go to the mountains again, and the route will be even more difficult. The intrusive silence of the forest is occasionally interrupted by the muffled sound of a mountain river on the rifts. Bright stars twinkle high in the sky.

The weather will probably be good. And tomorrow… Tomorrow we’ll hit the road again.