Archive · 2015 · From the print edition of Tuesday 28 July 2015, Vol. 23, No. 7,004
Across IradClimbers return to the Chatkal as old alpine camp reopens
Guides from the hamlet of Muz-Tör have reopened part of the Soviet mountaineering camp abandoned in 1992.
MUZ-TÖR — For the first time since 1992, climbers are sleeping in the huts of the old mountaineering camp at Muz-Tör, after guides from the hamlet repaired part of it this summer.
The camp was opened in 1972 for Soviet mountaineers, who came to climb the granite walls of the Chatkal range, among them the walls of the Kara-Kazan Cirque, where several routes were first climbed in the 1970s. It was abandoned in 1992, and its huts lost their roofs and windows. This spring men from the hamlet put new roofs on some of them, cleared the paths and brought stoves up by horse.
"My father carried the Russians' ropes," said Ulan Kenje uulu, one of the guides. "Now I carry the ropes of people from everywhere. The mountain is the same." Groups from Talas, Almaty and Europe have come this summer, he said.
Muz-Tör, a hamlet of about 90 people below the glaciated crest of the range, lies in the Chatkal Highlands zone of the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Its men work as guides, porters and horsemen for climbers and hunters. Visitors need a travel permit from the clan council, registered with the Gendarmerie.