Survival trip

Cold, rainy and foggy Demerdzhi tour May 1-3, 2009.

Having planned this event back in February, I imagined several times what it would be like, my first hike and life in tents. I saw myself lightly, in a cheerful Panama hat and sandals, happily jumping across the lawns, photographing bright flowers, poppies, for example. And butterflies and bugs fly around me, in general, life is in full swing...

Day one - Warm up.

And now, it has happened, we are already in Simferopol. We rented a backpack from Kirill, I imagined it to be small, but in reality it turned out to be larger than ours - 70 liters. Having put on a full backpack at the station for the first time, I began to stagger and be pulled back. Seeking balance and unity with this colossus, my ideas about an air campaign gradually dissipated...

After waiting a couple of hours waiting for our transport (trolleybus), we are finally in place and our group takes its first steps up the Angara pass. Warmth spreads through my body, no one is cold anymore, and I’m waiting for the first rest stop. Immediately clear thoughts come to me that it would be nice to run in the mornings before a hike and that at this stage I do not have the maneuverability for photo hunting, all my attention goes to balance and breathing.

The day has been cloudy since the morning, it is drizzling and now we are already in the fog. We spent the entire first day climbing up horse trails through thick fog. My strength was at its limit and my legs could barely move. I really wanted to throw off my hump, sit down, eat and take a nap. There was no smell of spring here. It was more like a prolonged autumn. Last year's leaves have scattered the earth in a thick ball, there is practically no greenery, the predominant colors are brown, gray, black, yellow. Along the way there were many fallen trees, uprooted by the wind.

The first day seemed very tiring due to the long climbs.

Everyone was worried about the issue of lunch and dinner. When we started preparing the long-awaited food, we discovered a lack of salt, which puzzled us a little. Washed chana and opolonik were involved in the preparation; Katya even wiped the latter dry with a napkin :)

We were full of overcooked, unsalted pasta and stew, which fell into a lump in our stomach, ending the first day.

Day two - Survival.

Having turned off the alarm clock, which mistakenly rang at 5 am, I heard a magnificent bird singing, which I had never heard before. And, it seemed, nothing foreshadowed trouble. I didn’t want to get out of the tent because it was lightly drizzling outside. After the morning meal, stuffing our bodies into raincoats and bags, we set off. The soil underfoot began to get wet and move apart underfoot. The clay stuck to my sneakers in a thick layer and wanted to take my shoes off. My toes had to curl into a ball, holding the sneaker on my foot. The huge hood of the rain poncho blocked the view.

Due to bad weather, our guide Victor decides to change the route a little. Having overcome the next climb upward, we see snow! Here they are, my butterflies and blooming poppies... it just gets more interesting. It’s impossible to stop and stop, it’s raining, the wind is blowing and there’s dirt everywhere. In addition, the fog becomes our constant traveler. After several hours of ups and downs, Victor says that we are lost! To be honest, at first it even amused me, these are the adventures I was looking for, I thought. The fog thickens, visibility disappears and you have to stay in a group so as not to get lost. We go out to the Yayls.

The muscles in my legs, arms and other parts of the body that I haven’t felt before tell me that my strength will soon run out. Not just the wind begins to blow, but a cold wind. We are dressed in yesterday's fashion - a T-shirt and a windbreaker on top. Walking as fast as possible no longer warms you up. The rain poncho on me and Denis is constantly blown up by the wind. Perspiration appears on the inside of the poncho. All the clothes somehow imperceptibly become wet. Slurry with water and dirt is squelching in your legs, your pants are completely wet, as is your windbreaker, your hands have long been frozen. Barely moving our legs, trembling not only from tension, but also from the cold, we walk along the washed-out road. You no longer understand anything, don’t think about anything, don’t see anything, you walk like a soldier - straight. And then my feet slip, I lose my balance and now I’m lying in the mud on my side. The awkward hood of the poncho covered my face, I can’t see anything, the backpack doesn’t allow me to move. How good it is that there are people like those who lead the hikes. Thank you very much to Denis, who is walking next to me, and to Alexander, who is bringing up the rear, who lifted me up. After a little shaking, I came to my senses a little and the second stage began - laughter. But not for long.

Victor stops again and takes out a magical shamanic tambourine - a compass - from his pocket. But that was not the case, the compass gets wet, the needle floats in rainwater, not showing the exact course. My ironic smile and thirst for adventure have disappeared somewhere. We change course again, not seeing any identifying marks: no roads, no mountains, no trees. There are cow dung all around, limp grass, fog, rain and a piercing wind. And now we come to a dead end - mountains begin to our right, straight ahead and to the left there is a cliff. There is no further road.

Victor decides to crawl up the mountain. I thought he was joking. Here I am already standing on the stones, they are pushing me from below, Victor’s hand from above is dragging me up. My poncho floats next to me like a ballerina's tutu. And at the top there is the same landscape - everything is in fog. It's starting to hail. Then the body says that it is now shrinking, and we make a two-minute stop to look for sweaters in our backpacks. Having taken off the hated poncho, then my backpack, windbreaker, remaining in a T-shirt in the hail, I put on a jacket and a hat. The body groans with joy.

Soon we come to some kind of road, on which we every now and then meet a series of tourists just like us, wandering away. Each group has its own guide, its own route and one problem - there are no landmarks. Victor once again changes direction, we begin to make a loop, wind in circles, meet the same people from other groups. Everything is like delirium, a bad dream, I’m not here. I can’t understand how someone with a lot of experience in mountain climbing and hiking can get lost; there must be a map, a compass, a GPS or something?! I want to bite Victor on the leg.

Two travelers lost in the fog arrive at us, they give us their compass, and we go out onto the road. Stomping all day! with one 2-minute rest to change clothes, Victor reassures us that in another hour we will be there, that we are on the right track. With the last of our strength, we drag our bodies in search of shelter, water and firewood.

We find a shelter next to a partisan clearing. There is only one desire - to warm up and change into something dry. While we are setting up the tent, Victor skillfully makes a fire according to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s method, using only wet branches, on wet ground and having matches and toilet paper. Sticking our feet in bags, we decide to dry our wet sneakers over the fire. All the variety of our clothes hangs on branches and slingshots in a circle from the fire. We are sitting in the second circle.

Oh, how delicious the buckwheat porridge was that evening! Filling our stomachs with a simply amazing lunch and dinner, the stress from the day we have experienced gradually fades away and, it seems, now we are not afraid of anything. Now you can safely stir tea with a broken stick, no one wipes the opolonik anymore, dirt is no longer scary.

That evening, a lot of our clothes burned - socks, several pairs of shoes, a jacket. But that was no big deal, because we got there!

I confess that during the day, before all thoughts left my head and my body fell into a coma, I walked and thought, what am I doing here? I thought that I was a would-be tourist and that I was unlikely to ever be one again. And there were moments when I just wanted to throw off my 70-liter backpack, which was simply digging into my body, and stop, maybe even burst into tears like the last girl, but no one gave up.

This day united our group and made us stronger. Now I remember this day with a smile, my whole body hurts, but the pain is pleasant.

Day three - Return.

The third day was no longer scary. My alarm clock rang again with my phone turned off at 5 am and my day began with the pleasant, soothing singing of birds. Thinking that this was not Groundhog Day, I went back to sleep. This night, unlike the first, was cool, and I didn’t want to get out of the tent.

Waking up in the morning, the sun was visible through the tent! Yes, this is exactly what we have all been waiting for. Well, gizmetio can’t deceive everyone like that! While we were deciding whether to get up or not, the sun disappeared and the sky was again covered with clouds.

As we set off, it started to rain again, but not like yesterday. The roads were still washed out, feet still slipped, but today no one walked around the mud, no one was afraid of it. We spent almost the entire day descending; there weren't many climbs. My body gained flexibility, and I was already squatting with a backpack, and the desire for photo hunting awoke.

Having reached the final destination quite quickly, some of the guys went to Simferopol, because their train left earlier than everyone else. And the five of us, two fighters from Kharkov and three from Moscow, decided to climb to the Jur-Jur waterfall in the remaining time.

Having completely smeared ourselves in mud, we got to it. This is the first waterfall I saw in my life, the view is amazing. We drove back from the waterfall to the stop in an open car along a rather narrow, slippery road with a crazy driver who did not want to slow down when turning. It was like a roller coaster ride.

Results.

During these days we saw hikers, bike tourists, tourists on bikes, jeeps, horses and even ATVs. We saw a different Crimea, not visible from the beach, cocktails and clubs. It rained all three days, we got lost, got wet, and froze. After everything you have experienced, you begin to appreciate simple things, you understand that you really need very little to be happy and you have it all.

All our clothes are dirty, burnt in places with the smell of fire and sweat. But damn it was great!

P.S. I don’t really know where we went, what the names of the mountains surrounding us, which were not visible because of the fog, were called. The events I described may be slightly exaggerated, but that’s exactly how it happened. Thanks to the guys for keeping our spirits up with catchy songs and, of course, to our guide, Viktor Semenovich Telny.