Tien Shen Climbing and Farewells

We climbed a peak, Pesnya Abaya at 4910 m.  This is a shot of Steve and Liane at the summit

It was a long day, 11 hours for the climb, then a short break for tea before the 4 hour hike to Base Camp. 

We managed to arrive just before night fall, so didn't need the headlamps. We enjoyed a relaxed day at camp. 

Three of us did a day hike to a memorial wall that offered a great view of camp. We arrived back moments before the snow storm hit.

We celebrated Canada's 150th at Base Camp with our Trekking guides and porters. Sandy brought some 'Canadiana"  paraphernalia. Sandy and Steve made a grand entrance singing  "Oh Canada"

The porters responded by singing their National Anthem.

The rest of the evening was spent playing games wiht the Trekking guides and the porters. Awe tried to choose games that were action based instead of word based. One of the games was charades,where we took turn acting our different people on the trek....super fun!

Of course, with the Russian influence............Vodka was part of the celebration. 

We  took advantage of the superb scenery at Base Camp for some group photos.

The female contingent

The guys

Our guides and porters

Just when we thought that the trip couldn't get any better, we were picked up by a huge Russian helicopter for the trip out.

There was no briefing, we told to hang on our hats/glasses when the chopper arrived and then pile in. All 18 of us and our luggage were loaded into the bird. We took a set of stairs to climb up inside and then crawled over luggage to find a seat. The seating was bench seating along the windows with all of the luggage piled in the middle. No seat belts ….of course. Then we slowly lifted off for the most incredible flight.

The  flight was 40 minutes and took us over a series of snow covered mountain tops and glaciers until the we flew out of the high mountains. Slowly the green appeared until we were flying over mountains carpeted in green, then we saw trees and flowers before landing at the heli base. The maximum height we reached was 5100m. We all spent the time alternating between taking photos and gawking out the windows. 

We had breakfast in the first yurt on the trek and then drove to Issyk-Kul to have lunch at our lakeside resort. 

Talk about contrast …we woke up at 4100m in our tents to fresh snow fall and -15C temperatures. A few hours later we were at a 5 star resort where we spent the afternoon lunching and then lounging on the beach.

We returned to Bishkek for our last night together. The evening started with a few celebratory drinks. 

Steve and Jackie shared some of Kyrgystan's finest Sparkling Wine with the group continuing our tradition of drinking Sparkling wine in each new country we visit. 

Dinner was a lovely lamb meal at a fancy Kyrgyz restaurant. 

Then is was time ot say good bye to the group