21st Century Altai
A mountaineering expedition to the Russian Altai making first and first-British ascents in Spring 2009.
As a young adventurer, it’s easy to become despondent in the belief that “everything has been done” and that there is nowhere left to explore. At least, that is, without doing something so extreme as to require decades of experience or being extremely dangerous.
We set about planning our expedition with an inflatable globe and a pin (used sparingly) with the objective of identifying remote yet accessible mountainous areas of the world.
A trip to Stanfords, several reports from the Royal Geographical Society’s database and a conversation at the Explore conference later, it became apparent that no one was climbing in the Russian Altai. With only the aid of a 20-year-old piloting map, we were quickly able to identify unclimbed and accessible mountains.
In May 2009, after the best part of year in the planning, I set off with five team mates to climb and explore the Altai Mountains. We succeeded in summiting several Siberian mountains which are all believed to be first British ascents.
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