The Siberian Altai Trip Was Over
Another long driving day back to Barnaul, overnight at the hotel in preparation for a flight back to Moscow, and for Mike, Nan, ex-Marine and myself, a change of airports to catch Lufthansa back to Frankfurt. In the Lufthansa Lounge at Sheremetyevo, the four of us went into a major food orgy, snarfing down as many bags of peanuts and potato chips humanly possible in a matter of minutes. AND, airline food never tasted better in our lives. Shows what two weeks of starvation will do...talk about desperation....
The Altai Mountain Trek would have been a wonderful trip with the proper Siberian organizer instead of the ill-fated one it became. I've always hesitated to book with bare-bones operators thinking they couldn't possibly do a good job in remote areas and instead used Mountain Travel Sobek who always puts quality trips together. Unfortunately for all concerned, their Siberia tour operator not only let them down but created a potentially life-threatening situation for everyone, including Rob.
However, Mountain Travel Sobek did the right thing and refunded a nice amount of money back to each participant for all the inconveniences...oh...like...near starvation...getting lost...dehydration....and dropped this "Exploratory" from their catalog. If you still are interested despite this fiasco, contact MIR because of their huge presence in Russia. I didn't see an Altai Trek in this year's brochure but I'm confident they could direct you. Or two others, World Expeditions, and Nepal Mountain Trekking
With the right Siberian organizer, I'd definitely recommend trekking there. The Altais have stunning alpine scenery, the trekking elevations were moderate, and the views of Mount Belukha...unbelievable. Check out Frith Maier's book: Trekking in Russia & Central Asia. Excellent. We read it before going and Frith considers this trek easy. (It probably would have been under the right circumstances.)
This trek was a perfect illustration of how a well-intentioned trip can go so wrong. But....we're not dead yet...and still here to tell you about it.... It's too bad that a camera crew wasn't along to turn this ill-fated trip into a highly rated "Survivor" episode...we could have been famous!
(2007 in Siberia: Siberia is now becoming the "silicon Valley" of Russia. Intel, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have offices here. Who would have thunk it!)
