down from the tree, Trezor flew after me, and we fell on the bear. The dog howled with fear, and the bear, distraught at the noise, threw his gun and ran away, tail between his legs in fright.
Young: – Phew!
The old man: – Wait a minute, wait a minute, the bear has no tail.
Narrator: – Well, why are you picking on me? He tucked up his something and ran away.
That’s how it happens!
Valery Balezin’s first route of the 6th category of complexity
After the championship veteran climbers in Sudak, Valery Balezin, Raikhan Galiakbarov and I went to visit Nikolai Zakharov, who rented a cozy house in Novy Svet. Hospitable host laid the table, which was with pleasure, after which in the usually modest and reticent Valery Balezin awoke talent storyteller and he told about his ascent to his first summit of difficulty 6. My imagination played out, and I retell his story in the first person.
– One day we went on our first six on the Bezzubkin route.
Azariev: – Wait, wait, isn’t that on the peak of Free Korea?
– Yes, this route is on the peak of Free Korea. This was the third pass of the route.
Azaryev: – When Bezzubkin passed it at the championship of the USSR, me and Kustovsky’s team just there closed the first categories in mountaineering. Bezzubkin passed the route in eight days. Today this Korea is traversed up and down, but then it was the first route of the 6th category of complexity.
Balezin: – In 1981 we (sport club «Yenisei» under the leadership of Y. Sapozhnikov) were in the mountaineering camp Ala-Archa. At that time 6A and 6B were not divided into 6 difficulty categories.
This season we planned to do level 6 climbing. Our choice fell on Bezzubkin’s route in the middle of the northern part, 4777m, which had been climbed for the first time in 1969 by the team from Krasnoyarsk for 8 days. For this ascent the team, led by Bezzubkin, won gold medals at the championship of the USSR. Since then the route had been repeated only once, so we planned a third ascent along this route.
The route consisted of three parts: the first part – the ice steepness of about 60 degrees and a length of about 250—300 meters, then the rocky part, a steep wall, destroyed in places and icy, about 350 meters and finally «roof» – a rocky slope covered with ice and snow steepness of about 60 degrees and a length of about 250 meters.
Our team consisted of 4 people: Bogachev A. (nickname Nikodim), – team captain Sapozhnikov Yu. (nickname Sapog). Balezin V. and Egunov V. (nickname Joe). All of us were climbing the route of the sixth category of difficulty for the first time.
Having carefully studied the route visually and from the description we had planned to climb it with only one overnight stay at the beginning of the roof, fortunately there was a snow shelf there.
After an overnight stay in a hut on the Corona Glacier, we set out on the route early in the morning at 3:00. The lower ice part of the trail had to be walked before sunrise, as it was then quite heavily pierced with rocks flying from the «roof». The weather was warm, and there were even trickles of water running on the ice, although it usually freezes at this time. This was not good, as warm weather increases the danger of the trail and the likelihood of bad weather is high.
We quickly made our way through the ice part of the trail and by 6 o’clock we arrived at the rock wall. At the beginning of the ice part of the trail Nicodemus was in the lead, and at the end of the ice part before the main rock massif, according to the tactical plan, I was in the lead.
While traversing the route we tried to minimize the weight of our backpacks. I didn’t even take my climbing shoes, but put on my rock shoes. They were some of the first rock shoes to appear in the USSR. Shura Gubanov brought them back from England and then gave them to me. These shoes were something in between modern mountaineering boots and lightweight trekking boots. They were not as comfortable for climbing as special rock shoes, but I could use them for approaches, and I even managed to securely attach ice crampons to them and walk quite confidently in them on the ice.
The start of the wall turned out to be ruined and not very convenient for setting up a belaying station. Nevertheless, I climbed the rocky ledge rather quickly, trying not to drop rocks on my comrades, after which the relief became firmer. The route was logical, and we gained altitude fairly quickly, the weather was good. I went first, Nicodim second, Joe third, and Sapozhnikov last.
In the middle of the route there was a horizontal traverse to the left about 15 meters on a steep wall, I passed it quickly, took Nikodim with me and climbed another 1.5 rope (60 m), then our movement stopped. Nikodim was below me on the shelf, waiting for the ascent from below, and Joe and Sapozhnikov are stuck on the traverse. I sit at the top and listen to their conversations, Nikodim shouts «let’s get the rope faster,» to which Sapozhnikov guiltily replies: «wait, wait, we have a problem.»
After an hour of waiting, Nicodim got fed up and started scolding Sapozhnikov – Sapog, how long can you wait,» to which Sapog and Joe responded vaguely. Finally, after 1.5 hours, they managed to get the rope to Nicodim on the shelf. The rope got stuck in a crevice and they had to cut off a piece of rope.
At this time I was sitting on the shelf looking down into the valley. Dense cloud cover was rising up the gorge, gradually closing the gorge, the foothills, closing the glacier, and gradually approaching us.
Nicodeiu brought a rope, I climbed higher, at that time the cloud cover caught up with us, it immediately became colder, and rain began to drip. As the clouds rose higher, the rain intensified, the rock got wet, and water started dripping down it. But we could not stop, we had to climb out onto some shelf.
I especially remembered the long vertical inside corner with a slit through which the water flowed. I had to stick my hands through the slit, water flowed into my sleeves and out of my pants. In spite of everything, I had a fighting spirit, and I climbed at about the same speed as I had on the dry rock. I heard Sapozhnikov shouting from below – look for a shelf for the night, although it was still a little over one o’clock in the afternoon. I began to remember the description and tried to imagine where the shelves were.
There was a good shelf only at the beginning of the roof and two more ropes about 40 meters before it. I went up the rope by traverse to the right, came out on the shelf and made a station on it. At that time the temperature dropped below zero, the rain turned into snow, the wind picked up, a heavy blizzard started, the wind was sculpting the snow not only on the steep cliffs, but also on the ceilings of the ledges.
Ahead was a steep rock bastion about 35 meters high. I tried to climb further, but after about 15 meters I finally froze and could no longer move up. It was about 20 meters to the roof. Covered with snow from head to toe, I went down to the shelf to Nicodemus, who had already begun to prepare it for the night.
The shelf was small, triangular in shape (rectangular triangle) with one cathetus 1.5 m and the other less than 1 m. Sapog from below shouted: – Did you find the shelf? Nicodim answers: – We found it. Sapog asks: – Shall we lie down on the shelf? Nicodim, without losing his sense of humor, replies that he can hardly lie down, but he can sit down.
Joe came and brought us the tent. We stretched it out on the ridge, nailed it to the rock and crawled into it like a sack. A bucket of water immediately poured over our clothes, a big puddle formed on the floor of the tent, and we had to hit the bottom of the tent with a hook to get the water down. The last person to crawl into the tent