We arrived to the hospitable land of the North Ossetia (Alania) where wanted to hunt for the Dagestan Tur and the Caucasian Chamois.
Out team included me, the outfitter of this trip, the hunter from Nakhodka- Kanatakbek Kurmangaliev, the member of the MHC and one more hunter from Khabarovsk- Leonid Kazantzev.
The guys were younger than I was but didn’t have such hunting experience in the Caucasus mountains. I gave them some advices how to be in good physical form and what equipment was needed. They started to train in a half of the year before.
Kanatbek hunted in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Altay but told me later that this trip had surpassed all the expectations about the complexity of the mountain’s hunts. You can see it if read to the end.
It’s a great pleasure to meet old friends. The staff whom I knew long years met us on the base “High Saniba”. All people who work there take care about the guests and the whole atmosphere there is always very friendly. We arrived to the base in the late evening but the traditional Ossetia feast waited for us. The chief of the local hunting company Tzara Sozanov and his wife Natasha met us and sat at the richly laid Ossetian table. We had tasty dinner, talked about the past hunts and gave the hunters recommendations about the future ones. It is priceless to be surrounded by people who share your interest and are close in spirit. But it was too late and we had to go to bed and have rest before the next hunting day. We decided to check guns in the morning while will be waiting for the guides’ arrival and then to go to the mountains.
Next morning we got acquaintance with two American hunters who arrived earlier than we arrived. One of them Ron was 58 years old, he was in good form and was very friendly, another one was younger- 54 years old but he was overweighed though full of enthusiasm to hunt in the mountains.
So all together we went for hunt after the lunch. I’d been in Jimara not once and knew this region. I'd climbed by one of its slopes with the hunter Zhaysan Syzdykov and described it in one of my reports. We came to the place where had to divided into two groups. I thought that my huntes and I would go the same way which I walked with Zhaysan. It was the hard way and hunters had to be in the good physical form. We would ascend at night and the complexity level was even higher. I did it many times but even I couldn’t imagine what would happen later.
The Americans were inferior to our physical conditions and the guides, after the heated debates, decided to change the plan and to lead them along the most gentle slope. We got the most difficult route out of those I hiked in Ossetia.
So we went. At 7 pm we set the mobile camp, had short lunch and went to sleep. The fog came down from the glacial to the valley where we stopped and our cloth got wet.
We woke up at 10.30 pm , packed the clothe to the backpacks, left some equipment in the cars which we closed and went to the mountains.
The stars glittered on the anthracite-black sky, the Gypsy sun slightly showed from behind the mountains and hid. I felt the scattering of boulders under the feet , which constantly touched the socks of mountain shoes. We had lights but didn’t use them because tried to observe the secrecy in case of meeting turs. In 40 minutes we came to the mountains foot and needed to climb 2000 meters. We began from the height 1000 masl. I saw several glacial afar. The guys didn’t know and I preferred not to tell them that the notorious glacial Kolka, which descended into the Karmadon valley, was behind the next ridge. I realized that we weren’t there but their looms reminded us how formidable they can be.
The valley ended and we began to climb. Good for us that it was night and we couldn’t see its steepness. If I saw in in the daylights I couldn’t be sure that it’d be possible to rise by such vertical slope.
We three and our guides started at 11 pm and climbed at 6am. We clambered by the stone loose, slippery from the frozen condensate on the surface of the stones, and sharp rocks. We supported and helped each other each time when the fellow who climbed first rolled back or when stones rolled under our feet.
Our climb looked so, we made one step ahead and two steps back. Legs and hands were in high tension and the pulse was out of the norm. The most dangerous thing was that we did it all in the darkness. The guides lost the way two or three times and couldn’t find the pass among the rocks. So we came back and went around. I have huge experience of climbing in the mountains of Kamchatka and Pamir but they always took place during the light hours but there we did everything at night.
I organized many of hunts and spent lots of hours in the mountains with the foreign hunters but had never been in such dangerous situation. I’m not sure that most of foreign hunters can stand of that. Most of them in such situations would curse me in a half an hour after the climb have started and would go back to the cars. Unfortunately I had such experience too. The only exclusion is the Norway hunters. They are very strong and endurance guys. Once I climbed the steep slope in the Sayan Mountains with the young Norwegian hunter. We carried not only necessary equipment but several tanks of water because there wasn’t water on the top. But the situation there was better because we could cling to the tread of mountain boots. The mountains were covered by the forest and bushes. The landscape on Jimara consisted of the rocks of different sizes from the huge stones to the gravel.
I was happy that was accompanied by the young Russian guys (even with the Kazakh roots) and with the Russian hardening.
At 4am we heard a crash. The part of the glacier broke away and rushed down with the booming roar. It fell to the place where we left our cars. In a few minutes we heard one more crash. We all felt Goosebumps.
We often stopped to take the breath because sometimes it seemed to me that my heart could break the chest. We went up to 3000masl.
At 4.30 the guide who went with the American hunters contacted with us and told very mournful news which made us to think about the sense of life and reality. One of the American hunters died! It happened that according his health he had not even approach to the mountains. Silence fall, we couldn’t see each other but felt the tension and worried about our college- hunter. The guides in that group knew what to do in such situations. We stayed there some time trying to realize what had happened. After a pause and we paid tribute to the departed in the world of "eternal hunt" hunter and continued our hard way. Life goes on and it doesn’t stop when somebody dies and we can’t change it
We had to be in a hurry if wanted to be in the right place in the right time.
I remember the words of the well know song, written by Vysotsky. l
“And others will come and change the warmth
For risk and this trial of work
They’ll follow the abandoned route of yours”
We went by touch to the top of the gorge Jimara and soon noticed the lights of Vladikavkaz. The city lived its life, we trekked our way. At the sunrise we estimated what way we overcame yet. Somebody could be dizzy just looking at the way which we has passed already. Close to the top the path became more gentle but the height was 3500 masl and some of us felt the oxygen deficiency.
We climbed at last. The guides observed the opposite slopes where as they thoughts males could be but didn’t find anyone. We went be the slope and some female turs with cubs ran across in 200m in front of us. We hid behind the huge stone and waited for males.
We spent about an hour at that place. Piercing wind used any crack in our cloth and we was cold. When we made the decision where we’ wait for the males I insisted on changing the clothe to the dry and warm one which we had with us. I always try to take extra dry cloth when go to the mountains and my experienced helped us that time.
Suddenly we noticed the herd of 50 -60 males which moved to our side from the opposite ridge.
Aslan and Jamal led the hunters to the shooting position while I stayed on the place and observed. I could see the river of turs which flown from the opposite slope. The river consisted of animals of different ages. The sight from the side was fascinating. The shooting distance was very comfortable about 70 metes. When the first trophy size male appeared from behind the slope Kanatbek shot and got his trophy. The animals ran to different sizes not understanding what was going on. Leonid shot twice and seriously wounded his trophy but it could ran behind the ridge. We didn’t find it that day.
Then we made pictures, had short lunch, packed meat and went back to the camp. It wasn’t comfortable to stay there longer.
It was out of the question to go down by the same way as we climbed. The descend was even more dangerous and we could fall into the gorge. The guides chose the next slope but even there the way down wasn’t the easy walk.
The climb took us 7 hours and 5 hours we went down. We went with extra weight and carry meat.
The guides detected birds which circled in the sky above the spot in the direction where the wounded tur ran. It’s a sign that the animal is over. We calmed Leonid who worried about this shot. Next day the guides found his trophy and took it to the base. Leonid got one more trophy Chamois at the last hunting day.Totally we trekked with backpacks 13 hours.
In the conclusion I’d say the I had never had such hard climb in my life.
Even our guides didn’t expect that it would be so hard. The average angle of our climb was about 50 degrees and sometimes we crawled literally on all fours on the slopes and rocks on the 70-degree slope. BUT! WE HAVE ALL OVERCOME ON THE WAY TO THE TREASURED AND HONORABLE TROPHY!!!
Thank you very much to our guides Aslan, Jamal and Giy. My personal thanks to Tzar Sozanov and his wife Natasha for their hospitality during that trip.
The hunt didn’t take much time but has the highest level of complexity. I can’t compare any hunt with that one.
Later I talked with some locals and they didn’t believe that we used that way and could climb there. But a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
