Altai Mountains of Siberia.
[New routes on remote peaks]
[May 2010]
[Western Siberia, Russia]
With several friends who were experienced mountaineers I visited the Altai Republic on a mountaineering expedition. After a two day trek in with pack horses from the roadhead above the small village we established a basecamp in a valley with next to no signs of humans. With limited shared language we tried to ensure that the packhorses and their drivers would return after we had done the mountaineering so we would not be stuck up there with many kilos of kit.
The vista of several of the peaks we climbed (Photo credit: Dave Tett)
After acclimatising we then climbed three significant peaks at the end of the valley. The mountains were not significantly high but are very remote. Very few people travel to this region and many more unclimbed mountains still exist in Siberia.