THE TEKELYU WATERFALL – THE AK-KEM LAKE – THE YARLOU PASS

They are all around here, very curious they are approaching the road when we ride by, get on their rear legs and watch us. It’s raining again. During two last hours of climbing we have reached 2, 080 meters high mark and are resting at the first camp “Visotnyk”. Whilst drying up our clothing in the wooden yurt called “ail” we are trying to figure out whether we should try to cross the Karaturek pass at 3, 040 meters already today. One of the instructors, staying here, Dima, advises us not to try it since we would need at least four hours only to reach it. He offers us to join his team and hike to the Yarlou River valley, called here the Shambala Verge. Shambala is the place where spiritual teachers live, and simple mortals are not allowed to enter it, not even to get to see it. Shambala has been also studied and searched by a great philosopher and artist Nicolay Roerich. By the way, it’s impossible to reach Belukha without stepping in the water and hence, without washing your feet. A truly sacred place!

For a while we are lucky with the weather and in mere two hours we finally reach the Yarlou Valley. We are happy to have joined the team ‘cause the views are marvelous: every mountain is colored in a different color, emphasized by the setting sun in the evening and the clouds during the day. It’s so weird to see the landscape changing so quickly depending on the shapes the cloud fog gives it, cutting of adding the pieces of its puzzle here and there. The banks of the river are rocky, gnawed by the water: there is no need in seismologic activity to change the relief here or to make a mountain crack or slip off some of its rocks, the outer forced of the Earth are managing it pretty well. Greenish-yellowish meadows, blinding whiteness of the glaciers and sharp spines of mountain ranges are composing the landscape too strange to be real, to say nothing of the oppressive feeling of being so small among all these foundations of the Earth, staying calm without any notice of our tiny presence, and quite the opposite, happiness just because of belonging to this world.

After all the colorful impressions Dima’s team invites us for dinner next to a fireplace. Later we move to the near rescuers base to stay for the night and to sing Russian song to a guitar.