THE KURZUNSKY PASS – TYUNGUR

The temperature is never rising higher than 10C. And they say “not a season”! Asphalt has turned into gravel and we also have to be careful because of the herds: livestock rules on these roads. After having two mountain passes crossed, totally wet we stop by at the Tuyngur village. Also the road stops here. At the prices of Swiss resorts we stay in the Ush-Agach tourist and hunting center. Price/performance balance is really bad here. We start looking for the guide for our planned trip to Belukha foot. A local sherp Misha, an Altayan comes to have an interview about it with us. He definitely has alcohol problems, same as most locals do. Janis tells me it was the same thing in Alaska and with the American Indians, too. Maybe this race lacks some sort of gene responsible for understanding of brain-damage effect of “fiery water”? He wants to have 6, 000 rubles for 2 days of the trip with two horses. But I guess we wouldn’t go with him even for free. However, there are no other options. At the neighbor camp I meet a guy who draws us a route on the map and finds two backpacks for us, so we decide to go thereby ourselves.