[Tourist] dinosaur in the mountains: why climb 800 meters without insurance?

As always – writing texts helps many things to rethink and settle in your head. In addition, I think that not everyone will be decided on such matters, so someone may be interested in listening.

“Dinosaur, and why are you suddenly a month and a half after?”. Well, historically. I wrote the text for a long time, but at first there was no photo-video, then the Internet was chopped off for several weeks (pouring the voice acting of a retrozor from a Wi-Fi cafe is still fun). And here Igomir on the nose, and I, in anticipation of the next trip, decided to drill a post, which I safely forgot about.

Yes, probably, there is even more pathos than usual. I roll into female novels and tourist brochures.

I doubted very much. In the left corner of the piece of paper, on which the uncertain “for” are located, it was written: “Several years of acrobatics, physical fitness at the proper level, financial availability, familiar people”. On the other side of the sheet, behind a long vertical line, the arguments were exhausted quickly, but weighed more: “Lack of experience, danger to life”. I crumbled what was written and threw it into the basket – the lists still do not help. There was only one way out, and the hand humbly reached out into the pocket. Tails. I’m going.

I collected a bag – for three days one backpack will be enough. Signed in the column “Informed about the danger”, paid for some symbolic organizational fees. Came at the appointed time: departure only in the evening, but for now large competitions. My name somehow fell on the list of participants-no, what, what stupid things are you. I don’t even need to try, I know everything that I can and what I can’t. And no competition. Let’s already on the bus. On Altai.

In fact, what’s the difference, as it is called? There are people who like move – They go to the gym, where they lie under the rods for hours. And there are those who love move, And these prefer a good jump to any bar. Now the reader’s head, probably a stupid associative series will appear, imposed by the media – try to hold it for at least a couple of seconds, while I give the event a formal definition. On August 2, 50 people went to Altai as part of the Siberian Parkour Festival VII.

I want to justify myself, they say – all these are nonsense and stereotypes. 14-year-old schoolchildren playing Yamakashi in the yards have nothing to do with sports. But I’m on the bus, and with me the “best of the best”, who passed the selection: they drink the whiskar and the thugs are strange songs about the zucchini. I don’t even want to make excuses here somehow. You just understand that all people are different, but the same everywhere. It is stupid to try to adjust the whole movement under the template – cattle and high intellectuals come across here with equal probability. General interests, nevertheless, a terrible thing: today these people do not have and cannot have anything in common, but tomorrow all the differences will be extended, it is worth starting someone to choose.

Novosibirsk is located only 400 kilometers from Altai, and playojocasino.uk most of the inhabitants have never happened there. Damn in vain: similar places can be counted on the fingers on the whole planet. Here the landscape can radically change in a couple of minutes: the roads are laid at the foot of the mountains, and they block almost the entire field of view. No horizon, only giant cliffs, among which you can shoot Tolkien without scenery-does not leave that the stones are about to come to life with a giant golem that will be sleepily brushed away from the rowing cloud.

All the more small you yourself become, and that is the “great” that you have to do today. The first day is a warm -up, “free movement”. The path runs along Katun, one of the strangest and stormy local rivers. Her “surface” is not even a flow, but a crowd where the water does not know where to put himself and constantly scatter in different directions. Right in the middle of the channel it can stop, and after two meters to twist into a terrible whirlpool. We warm up some simple exercises and wait: the motor boat with insurance will come to drive up. We arrived, reassured: “You will break out – we have 30 seconds to catch you. Good luck.”

50 people crawl along the steep slope with a single chain. Height – three meters, not even a river below, but stones. Literally in the soil you have to dig steps your steps, hold on to the roots and hug trees. This is nothing, a small stage at the beginning, warm -up. There is someone in front and back from you, you look where they come and tell yourself which stones are better not to touch. Here the shore makes an unexpected hook: there is a narrowing right in front of you, and it, without options, you need to jump over. No coins and the right to choose. Fly forward two meters, down – a meter to a convenient attack or four, if you miss. The stone is rough, you need to land softly, otherwise you will cut the foot. Fasting, extending their hands ahead. Gathered. He jumped.

Finally free space. Now you do not have to constantly cling to your hands – the level of the second, look at the feet. You go like a fossilized giant sandbox, in which not a single sandstone lies evenly. Only stones are hard and sharp so that you have to calculate every step. You learn to walk again: there are few, like on the asphalt, to rearrange your legs, any next movement is unlike the previous. The head works in a frantic rhythm, as never before – in a few minutes you are exploring and I want to run already, to speed up the pace, catching the pleasure of each faithfully calculated jump.

To your left, the river is broken about a rock with such force that you have to scream each other. You begin to experiment: to jump over water, land on wet stones, increase distances. You can’t get there – and you have 30 seconds. But no, alive, you can still jump. The seemingly distant final point is already under the very nose, the bus driver looks down questioningly. Where is there! All just go further, until the legs refuse to work. Go, we will meet further, after a couple of kilometers.

Night. Katun is not recognized here, it is calm and measured. The landscape changes independently, you don’t even need to go off the place: the clouds go damn low, then hiding, then making individual sections visible. The same with the stars that appear when they want, winking and immediately disappearing. The most amazing happens when a perfectly straight corridor is drawn in the sky: nature leaves a thin gap, as in a blind, so that you can look not at the stars, but into space.

This is not a city, the darkness here is absolute and opaque, the eyes see nothing but a small path of dust, settled somewhere endlessly far. Friends next to you are not too close, but that is just better. You inhale in full chest and feel that the whole world is compressed to the size of one point and one second.

For a kilometer, we climb up. All the same 50 people are climbing the path at an angle of degrees of sixty: this is not even climbing, but mockery. You have to cling to the grass, move through some fallen trees, and so for about 20 minutes. It seems to come, everyone climbed onto the first stone plateau. Where else? ABOUT. It’s clear. The number of participants is doubled – the acrobats realized that they did not sign this.

The path rests on the mountain range: the very place where the stones collided with each other thousands ago and rushed to the sky. Nothing in common with a climbing rod: there are a thousand options around to rest your arms and legs, but each of them is unreliable, requires checking. The top is infinitely far away, no one even thinks to get to it – to climb on this, first, vertical site.

Now under you is a plateau, fly down a maximum of three meters – but it is worth overcoming the first segment, like any hard surface disappears. Platforms where you can catch your breath become smaller and inconvenient. You are also lonely: you have to keep a distance in the mountains so that, if you break, do not hook anyone below. The head works at the same frantic pace as yesterday, hands rummage in search of hooks, and the legs are swaying, preparing for the next step.

You do not, it will not and should not have insurance, so each movement must be done so that there is not a second in it. The cable wrapped around the belt would allow you to take risks, give a sense of safety, stole that crystal clarity and clarity of the movements that you have found here. You cannot allow your hands to shake, and your feet slide: only a stable position, only concentrated short actions. The head is divided in two – one half before is terribly scary, and the other rationally calculates all the supports and understands that there is simply no chance of breaking.

Sometimes you feel like some kind of video game: the stone is replaced by a shrub and you have to climb along the vertical surface, holding only on strange herbs. In some place, the stone becomes narrow and you have to go a little downstairs to move, hanging on the hands. From one stop to the next people becomes less and less. At an altitude of 500 meters, a particularly unpleasant area arises – you need to literally crawl on a round stone without a single stop – and part of the group decides to turn back.

At a certain point, you understand that out of 50 you remained 15, and the action reaches its climax. “Tropy” width a meter, the upper face of the whole mountain: even the tops of the trees do not stick to the right and right, you climbed so high. You can’t go to full growth (and right, at such and such a height!), too loose stone under the feet. How much have you passed? Is it tired? You have no idea, now it’s not up to that. Ahead of 20 meters that will solve your whole life.

Carefully fall on all fours. The rational part of the head reminds: in front of you is just straight, you walked all your life in a straight line. Do not fall here, there is no difference for the body, what height to move. Voice in front: “Do not be afraid, the main thing is to stay in the middle”. You think – don’t be afraid? And suddenly you understand that for half an hour, as not at all, you have been afraid of anything. You are careful, but this has nothing to do with fear. You look at those who are ahead – their legs tremble with uncertainty. Yours are gone. Concentrated and short movements. There are only 100 meters left.

Another hour and a half descent down the mountain embankment. Fatigue does not appear, the legs simply sometimes reduce from tension, they just refuse to work. It’s already evening, the path back. The bus is quiet. You lie on an uncomfortable chair, resting in such a way as to see the starry sky. Something has changed. Something great happened. This will not be entered into the textbooks of history, and in your head memories will surely once come up. Just not to lose this feeling – when you completely control yourself and everything around.

“My name fell into the lists of participants in the competition – no, that you, I know that I can not cope”. Do I really know? No more coins and lists, only a decisive “yes” and only action. I climbed at an altitude of 800 meters without insurance, and my legs did not shake, because I knew that I could be able. Most of the people around the world will not repeat this, and it is hardly possible to reliably convey this. The only thing that remains is to try to spout to retell all the cosmos that occurs in the head.