Kyrgystan 2002
During the spring of 2002, browsing posts in the newsgroup pl.rec.gory, I found an offer to join the expedition to climb Chan Tengri, beautiful 7000m high summit in Tien-Shan chain, on the border of Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan. Expedition planned to attack Chan Tengri from the southern (Kyrgystan) side. I decided almost immediately - I had already more than 20 years of experience in climbing and advanced hiking in smaller mountains, from Tatra to Caucasus, but I have never been yet in large Himalaya-type mountains. After short correspondence with author of the message, Marcin Miotk, he accepted me as member of the team. During next few months I spent most weekends training intensively in Alps (it was possible as I lived that time in Munich, at their footsteps).
I flew to Kyrgystan in July, but unfortunately I have not climbed our peak. I caught cold just after arriving to the basecamp on the glacier and curing it appeared to be impossible in the very rough living conditions. But apart from me, expedition was succesful - from our 5-member team, Kinga Baranowska i Marcin Miotk reached the summit, Janek Dudarowski and Marcin Hennig retreated just 200m below it. I myself didn't even get up to 5000m, but I cannot complain anyway - I saw very exotic parts of post-soviet Central Asia and really beautiful huge mountains. Here is the relation (text unfortunately only in Polish) and photos from my trip.
