It was dark and cold when my guide an I left the camp. The mountains covered by night kept silence. Using the flashlight’s rays like the Ariadne's thread we reached the tumultuous river and crossed it by the fallen pine. I felt myself like the funambulist who showed the tricks in the darkness. The hunt waited for us on another side of the river.
We walk by the brushwood which is covered by hoarfrost and tend to the mountain from where the climb will start. All around us, illuminated by the monochrome light of our lantern, seems to be unreal, one-dimensional and flat. The beam of the lantern shows the fragments of foothill landscape: the gnarled bark of old firs, which were up against the pitch-black night, the tangle of branches of river willows, silvered by frost, the gray skin of belly boulders-stones, withered dry grass underfoot. The vapor of our breath in the cold air looks alive and voluminous. The body, heated by active movement, wakes up and breathes hard under the numerous layers of clothing. Trickles of sweat run along my back and I take off some extra clothe when we've made a short rest near the foothill. The perky stream murmurs on the pile of stone scree, like the staircase, calls us up. Let’s go!
We go up along the streamlet bed very carefully, check each step to avoid slipping and getting your feet wet. The gelatinous water runs from the glaciers, frosts on the wet stones and grass and freezes icicles on the shallows. It’s so tasty and quenches thirst well. Soon we leave the foothills forest and ascend about half of km by the open area.
Then the spring splits into two forks: the first one comes to the narrow couloir, the second has frosted and covered the rockfall be the icy glaze. We leaves river bed and scramble to the shore covered by the mangled forest. The low, thick birches creep by the ground because of the permanent avalanching and it’s really difficult to go through it. Twisted knotty branches and roots of trees tangle in the legs, whipping in the face, clinging to the rifle strapped to the backpack. We climb thirty meters then make a short rest to calm the heartbeat and attack them once again. Each assault finishes by the short stop and then repeats it. Forward only forward. This forest ends near the sheer wall on the top of which we see the small trees and thickets of Euphorbia. We have to scramble to the cornice if want to see the flat slope will is located behind it. The slope or so called hanging valley is the place where my guide has seen the grazing chamois. They are our goal.
Pulling up on the roots of trees groping for support under our feet on small recesses and ledges, we carefully overcome this boundary. The heart beats faster because of the blood pressure or because I’m nervous waiting what will be next. The heart falls down each time when the stone under the feet runs down with the noise.
At last we’ve done it but the slope is empty. It rises by the heavy wave to the mountain and goes to the next valley which we can’t see yet.
We stops for a while, monitor the surroundings through the binocular and go on up with the hope. The slope gets steeper and it’s not easy to walk, each step cost us energy and we have to make stops each 40-50 meters.
We’ve done it! But there are no animals on the next slope too. We comes to the place where the valley ends and camp among the rocks which protect us from the wind. Now I have time to look to the gorge from where we’ve come. It took us two hours. All under our feet covered by the light smoke and the river in the bottom looks like the vein on the hand. It reminds me the view from the plane. The century-old firs, yellow matchbox of our cabin and the thin thread of the mountain road look like toys. And only the massive ridges with the snowy tops stay very proudly. This is the beauty and power of the Caucasus!
What to do next? I see that Sergey is also confused. We reached the last point where were going to find the animals. Chamois don’t like to graze on the tops and prefer to stay close to the foothills near the pine and fir forests. But we don’t see any of them and it means that our plan doesn’t work. There are two variants what to do. The first one is to stay there and wait if the chamois will come or to climb to the top and check the surroundings on the other side. The second way is more perspective but we are afraid of its steepness. Sometimes it reaches about 45 degree tilt.
We realize that have to ascend but try to delay decision making and start to look through the binoculars. Suddenly Sergey detected the group of turs, in a half of km from us. The animals move to us side, but make stops for grazing. We have the license for this species and don’t want to lose lucky chance if there is a trophy size male. We both lay on the stones and monitor them.
It’s the beginning of November. Turs had molted already and changed the fur to the winter one, of the dark sand color. They merge with the brown grass-covered slope, it is difficult to keep track of them. The herd stretched along the slope but we can’t find the male. It consists of females with babies and some last year youngsters. The group is leaded by the old female which moves ahead while small babies get in her way. Animals go against the wind and don’t smell us. We watch how they moved in 100 meters from us. I could see through the sight how the gusts of wind flutter their thick fur, and how their nostrils flinch when they sniff and even how the leader looks around. It’s a pity but there is not the trophy size male in this herd. Though it’s rut time and a male can be somewhere close, we have to be ready any time and check surroundings from time to time.
When animals disappeared behind the mountain’s kink our group went on our climbing. We moved by zigzags putting the edge of the sole of the shoe in the rocky ground, leaning on a faithful pole and persistently climbed up. I tried not to look back because each time when I did it accidentally I felt that the current shot through the body, same feeling as if you were falling to an abyss in the dream. The steep slope under my feet runs down where you can hardly see the river and the cabin. It makes the illusion that the ground tilted like a sinking ship. There is no longer the usual level horizon, and someone deliberately increases and increases the angle to eventually shake me down into the bottomless abyss.
I try to look just on the faded grass, stone’s crumbs and the grey top of the rocks which protrude from the snow. I’ve lost track of time and walk thinking about nothing. We concentrate on the only thing how to not to waste breathing. It seems very important. The peaks of the rocks come closer and at last I can touch their rough century skin. We did it.
We reached the top where wasn’t going. I’ve found the support underfoot and now can look around. My head is spinning because of the height but then the feeling of the pure delight fills me with everything. My peak was the highest among the others and the Caucasus glistening with glaciers under the sun laid before me as if in the palm. The mountains stretched to the horizon alternating with narrow valleys and circuses. The shadow slopes, cut by the veins of clefts were covered by snow though the sunny ones were bared. I was impressed by the endless scale and monumentality of the mountains, they filled the whole expanse and caused both admiration and awe. The azure sky spread out of them and the lonely Griffon vulture circled above us.
Sergey and I reached the end of the peak on all fours and looked behind it to the next side of the mountain, the sheer wall of which fall for a hundred meters down. The strange group of the black stones, on the next slope across the chasm from us, attracted our attention. We snuggled to the binoculars. So they were, Chamois!
Five females pastured on the small piece of grass and lay down to have rest from time to time. Their thick winter fur made them look like funny toy balls on the thin legs. They all were black except the white undertails and heads. Small, black horns stucked upright like antennas and, curved into hooks at the ends.
Soon we detected the male which looked like female but had the specific brush on its belly. It was nervous. The male ran up and down along the rocks as if protected the herd. Soon we understood what was going on. When our male climbed to the top and I was ready to fire another male appeared. It stretch the neck and trotted towards the goats trying to get acquaintance. The rut season was in full swing. The first male, the dominated one, ran to banish it. It chased it to the foothill, we could see them till that place, and ran back in ten minutes. The rival appeared several times and everything repeated.
All that time I was laying on the stones waiting for the opportunity to shoot. There were several moments which bothered me to act. The distance was too long, the male was very active and I was afraid that it’d fall into the abyss. I hoped that sooner or later it’d leave the steep slope and moved to the snow plateau where I could take it. But it didn’t happen. The center of its attraction was the females and it was afraid to leave them. The “ladies” grazed to the same piece of grass and were not going to leave it.
The hours went but nothing had changed. I put on some extra warm clothes and laid on the ground watching how my trophy ran up and down by the rocks trying to find and to banish the opponents. My fellow and I discussed all possible variants and went to the conclusion that none of them was worthy. The chamois would notice us in any case if we try to approach.
We spent here three hours already.- Sergey grumbled watching the old male through the binocular. The object of our displeasure stood on the end of the rock and chewed a bunch of grass. If it rose in sixty meters up to the crest of the slope I’d fire without hesitation.
“If it reach the crest, shoot it immediately”.- Sergey gave me advice. The goat heard his words and moved to the top. I strained and we hold our breath. But luck turned out from us and it stopped but didn't reach it. The slope on the place where it stopped was more flat and there was a chance that it wouldn’t fall down.
"Well, that's enough, so we'll wait until night!"– the guide couldn’t suffer anymore. "Go ahead, take him down now!»
The red square of my rangefinder laid on its black fir and measure the distance. It was 220 meter. I made all necessary corrections and prepared to act. The animal turned and I pulled the trigger without hesitation. The chamois, thrown by the shot, jumped and fall to the slope, raising clouds of dust on the dry ground. It was fading and inexorably slide down to the abyss. Sergey and I asked our gods to prevent it but they didn’t hear us and the trophy disappeared in the bottomless precipice. Later we heard the sound of the rockfall somewhere deep down.
We’ve sigh heavily and started to descend wondering how much time and effort it would cost us to get the trophy up. Meanwhile the sun had long passed its Zenith and we realized that couldn’t come back to the camp till night. So it was.
