The Non-Attempt

by Andrey Golovachev

At 0100 on 25 July 2020, my partner and I did NOT start on the North Face of Mt. Ulluauz – a prominent technical peak in Bezengi (Russian Caucasus) which, at 4676m, is around 130m lower than the Mont Blanc.

I’d never felt more prepared for a climbing route.

One and a half kilometres of ice however gently angled and soft, did not seem an easy win especially given the dubious and undoubtedly thin ice couloir at the very top. Yet we were mentally prepared to tie-off ice screws, to place pitons on the couloir’s sidewalls, to climb up the rock tower should the couloir turn out unclimbable, and even to spend a night on the summit. We had plenty of time and no one was anxious about seeing us back home or at work. We carried enough spare cord to renew all the abseil stations – we anticipated at least ten rappels and were about to be the first climbers of the season.

The weather forecast looked reasonably encouraging. The basecamp radioed that the following day the weather was going to be “as usual”, which in Bezengi essentially means a clear morning and some showers in the afternoon: no thunderstorms, lasting cyclones or other dubious meteorological gifts from the Georgian side of the Greater Caucasus.

The route itself was in perfect condition. The last excesses of snow had avalanched down the face just a few days previously when we were descending Mt. Ural – a sure and encouraging sign that we wouldn’t have to dig an arm’s depth snow pit to place a screw. Still, the schrund was thoughtfully covered by a couple of snow bridges and the streaks of bare ice looked spongy enough to warrant cool calves.

My partner and I are regulars of Ala-Archa (Kyrgyzstan) in winter – a place notorious for its bulletproof ice that is better climbed along thin natural cracks to minimise the risk of dinner-plating or your tool rebounding back in your face. We therefore felt rather carefree on the summer ice of Bezengi. Our picks and crampons were freshly sharpened, and the 16 screws we had would let us simul-climb fast for long stretches without having to stop for gear exchange.

We did not expect the climb to be particularly physically demanding. We both were perfectly acclimatised, with two nights recently spent at 4,200m and another two at 3,800m. Prior to the trip I would regularly run uphill intervals with a 300-400m gain and, as the result, I felt rather fit. We approached the route from the basecamp in a little over 4 hours and spent the rest of the day napping and keeping an eye on the wall. Not a single rock fell, nor could we see any signs of recent rockfall on the snow.

It is crucial to follow the right couloir branches during the Mt.Ulluauz descent. To prevent any misinterpretation of the route description I got advice from four people who climbed the route in previous years. Rather than reversing our route, we were going to abseil off the far side of the mountain to reach one of the most remote and unhospitable campgrounds of Bezengi – the famous ‘3,900’. To descend further to the basecamp, we would have to spend the day after the climb wandering through the maze of a jagged icefall – not exactly a “walk in a park”. A big party from a major climbing club was going to cross the same icefall on the way up to the campground on the same day as us however, so we had our backs covered in case of an accident.

We parked our single-wall tent literally five metres away from the edge of the central moraine and some two hundred metres from the base of the route. Next morning, we planned to rope up right by the tent and start crossing the bergschrund in the darkness. The ultralight ‘pancake’ camera lens bought specifically for this ascent was ready to catch us both cheering on the summit with the enormous white pyramid of a five-thousander Koshtan-tau in the background.

Cutting a long story short, we thought out everything. Lying in the tent, I led the entire route without breaking a sweat, finished off my pint at the basecamp’s bar, got a record in my climbing logbook, processed the photos and responded to ecstatic Instagram commenters. Snapping back to reality, I crawled out of the tent, took a few photos of the glorious sunset and drifted back into sweet dreams lulled by the gurgling streams on the glacier.

The alarm went off at midnight. We sniffed the drizzle outside the tent – the black pyramid of the mountain loomed right in front of us. Alarmingly, the boulders around our tent were wet and the horizon was flashing and rumbling low. “Eight”. “I’ve counted ten. Must be three kilometres or so away”. “Uh-oh. Let’s snooze for one hour…”.” Fine”.

After one hour the flashes became noticeably less frequent, though the thunder was still audible and a rather ominous cloud stuck to the middle of our peak. At that very moment we became accomplices in ditching the climb: warm sleeping bags pulled us back into sweet dreams and we happily neglected any consequences.

At around 0400 the sky turned red and completely cleared of all the remaining clouds. I suddenly realised what was happening. The recommendation was to start at 01:00 latest. I urged my partner to move on, but he flatly refused to start so late. Shamefaced, we turned up at the basecamp to perfectly clear skies. Later that day we heard many prudent and compassionate comments like ‘the mountain will still be there next year’ and ‘great you guys made it back alive’. That day Bezengi saw THREE accidents: two guys with broken ankles and a femur fractured in a rockfall.The lesson Mt. Ulluauz taught us was to be mindful of the consequences of inaction. Consider that this very moment – when your eyes are following the lines of my non-native English text – will not ever happen again. It is far too easy to let the moment slip by and utterly impossible to reverse it, to relive it in a different way. Despair and pain from recognising this cast-in-stone fact tormented me for several days after this climbing non-attempt. Perhaps it has taught me to value my time after all.

Andrey Golovachev is a mountain guide and trek leader based in St Petersburg, Russia.

Our tiny tent next to the north face of Mt. Ulluauz
All photos by Andrey Golovachev

Sunset clouds over Mt. Dykh-Tau, the second-highest in Europe

The profile of Mt. Ural East (4150m), the rock face that we did climb

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