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17th Feb - Skiing Beldersay ski area
The original plan was to head back to Chimgan to ski another line in the same zone as the previous day, but when we drove past Chigan to pick up Kseniya, then I had looked up and seen numerous more tracks on our line down the big ridge. We picked up Kseniya and I told her about the extra tracks and she didn't believe me at first, but then she saw them. She said she heard a heli flying around that morning and then she called up the heli company and yes, they had dropped their group off in that zone. They were going to be going back to ski the even bigger ridge that we were planning on hitting. Grrrrr! There would be no point in skinning all that way then, so time to enact plan b! Beldersay.....
Beldersay is a tiny ski area with only 1 rickety old double chair and a defunct rope tow and t-bar. It's sandwiched between Chimgan and Amirsoy and we've had great views of it from our chalet, this whole time. Such is the way in Uzbekistan, you don't need a lot to have amazing skiing. To get there, we drove back out of Chimgan towards Amirsoy and then there's a left turn to get to Beldersay. The chairlift is in a really steep valley and not somewhere you'd think there would be a lift. It was past 10am and we had to wait a few minutes for them to fire up the lift fir us and we happily waited. There's no day pass, you pay by the run which is 25,000 SOM or about $2.50!
You can have them take the skis up on the chair before you (you don't wear skis as there is only a large wooden ramp/platform, most people using this lift are site-seers) and then stand on a faded red platform and then the chair comes around and you jump on. It takes about 20-minutes or more to reach the top and then the person on the left has to hop off and move left and person on the right hops off to the right at another faded red mark. Getting on and off are a little hectic the first time, but second time on it I wasn't as scared for my life! Ha ha.
At the top of the chair, we put the skins on and started climbing past the old t-bar to the true summit. It takes about 40 minutes or so and the skinning is beautiful. There were a few snowmobile tracks and then a couple of ski tracks, but otherwise a lot of fresh lines. We skied this beautiful open face and I stopped halfway down to film the others. Then we skied down an awesome steep spineline and I followed Kseniya with my helmet cam. That ended in a deep bootpack out in the hot sun, for about 20-minutes. Definitely worth it though. There were a couple of groups of Uzbek army soldiers teathered togher coming down the track, in the death wedge, all tethered together. They had looks of terror on there faces. They all carried AK-47's so we didn't laugh too loudly. The ski down the bottom was hard work in the tracked up pow/mank but easy enough.
Then we cycled back up for another go on the chair. This time we made a slightly different skin track through the lower section and then rejoined our original skin track, higher up. Frustratingly several hikers had walked up through the skin track and really messed it up so it wasstill hard going, but we made it to the top and this time, carried on up and around the weather observatory and surprisingly, there were a couple of houses up there on the summit (with solar panels and TV dishes) for the workers at the observatory. What an amazing view!
Then it was a short skin up to the summit of another mini-peak and we could de-skin and get ready for the down. Our line was a massive ridge that went way down into the valley, not far from the chair. We skied it in 4 pitches, with the terrain starting pretty mellow and getting gradually steeper. The snow was awesome, untouched and settled pow. The vertical was huge. By the time we got to the last pitch, it was really steep. Thankfully stability was great and apart from a few sluffs, the snow wasn't moving. Another amazing run ticked off! Then it was time to put the skins back on and regain the ridge up by the chair. That was relatively easy, only about 20-minutes. Then we had a ski down to the bottom of the chair (Kevin and I did have a bit of an adventure as we went looking for more pow on the way down and that took a lot of extra time) and it was past 5pm by the time we made it out.
We didn't get back to Amirsoy till after 530pm, but it was another amazing day. Plan b turned out really well! We had a lovely dinner at the restaurant and today Julie and I are headed off on a cultural day whilst Kevin will be skiing in Chimgan (this time off the chairlift) with Kseniya.
- Matt
The original plan was to head back to Chimgan to ski another line in the same zone as the previous day, but when we drove past Chigan to pick up Kseniya, then I had looked up and seen numerous more tracks on our line down the big ridge. We picked up Kseniya and I told her about the extra tracks and she didn't believe me at first, but then she saw them. She said she heard a heli flying around that morning and then she called up the heli company and yes, they had dropped their group off in that zone. They were going to be going back to ski the even bigger ridge that we were planning on hitting. Grrrrr! There would be no point in skinning all that way then, so time to enact plan b! Beldersay.....
Beldersay is a tiny ski area with only 1 rickety old double chair and a defunct rope tow and t-bar. It's sandwiched between Chimgan and Amirsoy and we've had great views of it from our chalet, this whole time. Such is the way in Uzbekistan, you don't need a lot to have amazing skiing. To get there, we drove back out of Chimgan towards Amirsoy and then there's a left turn to get to Beldersay. The chairlift is in a really steep valley and not somewhere you'd think there would be a lift. It was past 10am and we had to wait a few minutes for them to fire up the lift fir us and we happily waited. There's no day pass, you pay by the run which is 25,000 SOM or about $2.50!
You can have them take the skis up on the chair before you (you don't wear skis as there is only a large wooden ramp/platform, most people using this lift are site-seers) and then stand on a faded red platform and then the chair comes around and you jump on. It takes about 20-minutes or more to reach the top and then the person on the left has to hop off and move left and person on the right hops off to the right at another faded red mark. Getting on and off are a little hectic the first time, but second time on it I wasn't as scared for my life! Ha ha.
At the top of the chair, we put the skins on and started climbing past the old t-bar to the true summit. It takes about 40 minutes or so and the skinning is beautiful. There were a few snowmobile tracks and then a couple of ski tracks, but otherwise a lot of fresh lines. We skied this beautiful open face and I stopped halfway down to film the others. Then we skied down an awesome steep spineline and I followed Kseniya with my helmet cam. That ended in a deep bootpack out in the hot sun, for about 20-minutes. Definitely worth it though. There were a couple of groups of Uzbek army soldiers teathered togher coming down the track, in the death wedge, all tethered together. They had looks of terror on there faces. They all carried AK-47's so we didn't laugh too loudly. The ski down the bottom was hard work in the tracked up pow/mank but easy enough.
Then we cycled back up for another go on the chair. This time we made a slightly different skin track through the lower section and then rejoined our original skin track, higher up. Frustratingly several hikers had walked up through the skin track and really messed it up so it wasstill hard going, but we made it to the top and this time, carried on up and around the weather observatory and surprisingly, there were a couple of houses up there on the summit (with solar panels and TV dishes) for the workers at the observatory. What an amazing view!
Then it was a short skin up to the summit of another mini-peak and we could de-skin and get ready for the down. Our line was a massive ridge that went way down into the valley, not far from the chair. We skied it in 4 pitches, with the terrain starting pretty mellow and getting gradually steeper. The snow was awesome, untouched and settled pow. The vertical was huge. By the time we got to the last pitch, it was really steep. Thankfully stability was great and apart from a few sluffs, the snow wasn't moving. Another amazing run ticked off! Then it was time to put the skins back on and regain the ridge up by the chair. That was relatively easy, only about 20-minutes. Then we had a ski down to the bottom of the chair (Kevin and I did have a bit of an adventure as we went looking for more pow on the way down and that took a lot of extra time) and it was past 5pm by the time we made it out.
We didn't get back to Amirsoy till after 530pm, but it was another amazing day. Plan b turned out really well! We had a lovely dinner at the restaurant and today Julie and I are headed off on a cultural day whilst Kevin will be skiing in Chimgan (this time off the chairlift) with Kseniya.
- Matt
