Breaking Trail by Arlene Blum

Author:Arlene Blum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2005-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Nineteen days later I boarded a plane for Moscow. Once settled in my seat, I thumbed through the official brochure. “Well-known Soviet climber Vitaly Abalakov invites you to conquer the Pamirs,” it began. I studied the glossy photo of our ice-capped objective: Peak Lenin, at 23,406 feet the highest in the range. I was pleased to read that Lenin was described as an easy and safe peak, the most frequently climbed 7,000-meter mountain in the world.

I’d packed so quickly that I’d neglected to bring anything to read during the inevitable storm days on the mountain, so when we stopped in Copenhagen I hurried off to buy a book. I reboarded with The Treasure of the Great Reef by Arthur C. Clarke, the only book in English in the airport bookstore, tucked under my arm.

As we flew over Eastern Europe, my thoughts turned to my three teammates, whom I would meet for the first time in Moscow. In my purse, I carried welcoming letters from Heidi, but I knew little of my companions’ personalities, ambitions, or climbing abilities—nor did they know mine.

At a spartan hotel in Moscow—the Sputnik Hotel—I found my team among the crowd of international climbers: Heidi Lüdi, a sturdy twenty-seven-year-old medical doctor; Eva Isenschmid, twenty-three, a gentle artist and photographer; and Margaret Münkle, fifty-four, an experienced mountaineer. They were all from Switzerland and spoke to me mostly in German, which I could barely understand. Because Heidi and I had corresponded in English, it hadn’t occurred to me that they, of course, would talk with each other in German and I would feel left out.

Three days later, all the climbers took a night flight to Osh in Kyrgyzstan, where we were greeted by pink-cheeked children who handed us bouquets of fragrant red roses. Another short flight and a bumpy five-hour truck ride brought us to our Base Camp at 12,300 feet, in a green meadow sprinkled with brilliant wildflowers.

Rows of identical white canvas tents were dwarfed by the icy splendor of Peak Lenin rising directly above. Around us, sheep and yaks grazed in the lush grass, and azure lakes reflected the white mountains. The camp was much more luxurious than I could have ever imagined. The Russians were staging this “sports camp” not just to share their highest mountains with the world, but also to raise hard currency for a Soviet Himalayan expedition. They charged us $750 each, and we got our money’s worth: hot showers, volleyball courts and soccer fields, and nightly movies. Electric light bulbs dangled at the door of each tent. I felt like I had stepped inside the glossy brochure.

Even though I had known the event was going to be international, its scale surprised me. More than 160 climbers from a dozen Western countries enjoyed the amenities of the upscale tent city, while about sixty climbers from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union resided in a simpler camp across a stream.

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