Hahaha, the crows didn’t get me, not yet … I attempted the Mt. Erciyes (3917 m). But not the way I should have. The day before I was hanging around in a carpet selling store for almost the whole afternoon. The people I met let me see the city in a different light because when
I first entered I thought of it as the ugliest city I have ever seen. Anyway,
fed up with city experiences I decided to leave the town the same evening and hike to the mountain. I was not in the mood of waiting for a climbing partner to answer over couchsurfing so I went alone. I slept near
some shepherds to have the possibility to retreat to their tents. But the unstable weather changed to a clear sky over night. I got a shitty
map of the mountain out of a tourists brochure for mountaineering in Turkey. I decided to attempt on the north-west side, ’cause there
were no tourists. (On the east side was a ski lift up to 2800 m) On the west side there were no tourists at all, actually there was nobody at all, not even other climbers who would maybe have had better maps.
My plan was to climb alone if I would find nobody to hook on to, because I always can climb back if I find something too difficult to pass. My
plan was to climb over a snow couloir to a saddle point between the two mountains and afterwards head over the north– west ridge to the summit. But when I reached the bottom of the couloir it was already 9 o’clock
in the morning — much too late. The snow was still good and I was more or less save of rockfall as long as I kept my line. Which I didn’t. In the middle of the snow field
I was kinda tired and started to climb diagonal to safe energy. The snow already began to melt and I had to place
my steps more carefully. The couloir was not steeper than 65° but only with my T–pick and in the sun it was hard work. I drifted too much right, too much of the direction of the rocks of the other mountain. Without
any announcement there were rocks coming down around 4 to 5 meters away from where I was climbing. One of the rocks had the size of about 40 cm. You can imagine how fast I traversed to the other side. There
I first had to catch breath again. After my legs stopped shaking I was able to climb to the end of the snow couloir. But this was not the end of danger. I had to pass a steep field of rocks. These rocks were very
small and quite often I released small rock avalanches going downhill. Luckily without me. I reached the top and according to my watch
there would have been 200–300 m left to the summit.
From my point of view the ridge which I had to climb would have been
in the fourth grade. And doing that alone without a proper idea where
the path was going was too much for me.
I had enough action for one day.
I decided to retreat, but I didn’t want to climb the same way down as you can imagine. Maybe if I spent the night on the mountain. (I had food and cooking equipment for 3 days with me) I went down at the other
side of the mountain, which was easier. But I had to walk around a mountain to get to the place where I started. It took me around six hours of walking through stone fields but I reached the place where the shepherds
were safe and sound. Ok, sound is not really true because I must admit I was tired as hell, the sun and my backpack were wearing me down.
«Good judgement is
coming from
having survived bad judgement»
I guess I had to proof that for myself.