ALEXANDER ODINTSOV
Interview for Mountain.RU

Jannu 7710m, North Face - 2003

MRU: Alexander, in your opinion what is the difference between that you had expected and you saw? Tell our readers about your impressions.

A.O.: Whether we saw that we had expected? The Wall did not present any unexpectedness. From the point of view of extent, we knew, that it was three and a half kilometer long, from the point of view of steepness, we knew, that the Wall was practically vertical. Though nobody has seen it close as anybody hasn't come up to it. If we take under consideration the complexity of its relief, we saw that we had expected in the bottom and average part, with one exception: the present relief of ice-fall is the most objectively dangerous place I have ever seen. By analogy with the ice-fall on Uzhba where you are able to settle a tent under an overhanging serac and live there for example for a week waiting for all this will collapse. The same situation was here. Daytime norm was 15-20 ice-falling collapses in different places. And we had to manoeuvre between these traps of surprises, well, and also we expected constantly when you would finally fill up. That we have stayed safe and sound is the great success.
And it was the twist of fate that Mike Mikhailov was involved in serious ice-fall accident at 5300m. The most dangerous part was at 5100m, where the boarding line between the ice-fall and rocks lay. So I guess it happened because of our stereotypes in that case. If Ruchkin had seen separately that site of the route without the context of the general ascent, he wouldn't climb there. The situation was as follows. There was a rocky needle with a glacier lying over it and a huge serac stood just in a place where the glacier flew in. That serac actually fell down and squeezed Mike. They were climbing between the serac and rocks. If somebody show the normal sane person that place, he will climb on rocks. It would be more difficulty, but safer in ten times. And we would bypass that crux. But we had been crawling on the ice-fall for ten days hither and thither, and there were a lot of objective reasons for us to be killed. But we stayed safe and sound. It was the last place, last pitch of such character. After that site the safe output followed to 5600m. And that he hastened there was the last trouble that we would imagine. To tell the truth, the situation was critical, percent on 30 I was confident, that we would lose him: the craniocereberal trauma, a hematoma in his lung, broken ribs, numerous contusions of his pelvis. But the most of all we were disturbed by the fact that Mike couldn't urinate within four days. We did not know, whether he had internal organs injured and peritonitis.

Answering your question, I want to note the mountain brought us no surprises with an exception of the one thing: the first, the ice-fall was in a very bad condition. And the second, we would go round it on rocks. If I sometime give a consultation to somebody about this mountain, I will state the categorical recommendation: you mustn't climb any ice-falls, only on a rock! The experience two climbers will work these rocks for a day up to 5600ì, all pitchers.

MRU: Whether it is possible to compare Jannu with any other summits you have already ascended?

A.O.: Certainly, it is possible to compare. Almost on Gogol: if we add to Peter Ivanych's appearance but the character of Nikita Sergeevich and Eugeny Parfyonycha's wealth It would be the ideal groom … The same I can tell about Jannu. Actually, it is a conglomeration of three mountains, completely different, with different characters, with different levels of complexity, different problems, which are going one on another.
I can refer the three following mountains according to three indications. The first one is Yellow Wall in Asan: It is extent, steep, with a character of a relief especially for climbing. The weather is usually warm enough, but a little colder and damper.
The second one - from 5600 up to 7000 meters - is Shkhara. And the third one- with snows, ice, the foulest weather, a permanent possibility of avalanche coming off, is Asan, just shorter and much higher. And Jannu is these three mountains put one on another.
One day Nikolay Totmjanin descended to the Camp and said: "It isn't to climb Everest via the classical route, you have to work hard as a navvy here!" But he is the sole climber who ascended Everest this year without using oxygen.
I mean that it is the mountain, which, first, demands skills of all arsenal of mountaineering. Second, It demands refined tactical preparation. You have to be like Hannibal from mountaineering. Thirdly, it devours so much moral forces, how many those three ones taken together eat.
If we didn't ascend over that ice-fall, we left less forces, but who knew it? I am not Hannibal. Not knowing a right route we stupidly tried to climb the ice-fall.

MR: What about the all-previous expeditions. Did they also climb on the ice-fall?

A.O.: As they say, yes they did. At least, we found there a bight of rope.
The Uzbeks went on ice-fall. As they affirm they didn't start climbing it without having drunk on a glass of vodka … It was terribly terrible. It is indescribable! Every times you had to force yourselves to move. You reached the safe part on serac and there was something to the right and to the left of you. You thought that you had only to traverse that way and to climb the serac, then to rappel from it to a crevasse, climb the next reeling serac and then to rappel again into a crevasse. Then there was the another serac and you needed to move to the next serac on fixed rope. And then we had to move on a ridge like a knife, just striving to fall, to the Wall, reached the wall and went along the wall through a corridor formed between a rock and a snow by melting. Going like through a pipe you began felling that a cast-iron ball was just going to slide down. All the time you felt a desire to rush by it. But after that serac the next one appeared. And you had to allocate your strength and went slowly as a turtle and looked at it. It was indescribable terrible. And seracs were really hanging above you, above your head, here - just about ready to fall… And the most interesting thing that they were falling, with quite certain periodicity. There were 15 collapses a day as Ivan counted.
It looks as if the glacier began more alive in comparison with the last years. The Uzbeks assert that they climbed on the right part, but now there is no right part there, It has fallen. Certainly, if we straight away climbed the rocky site … but we even hadn't take our rocky shoes, and who had known that?! Any normal person would prefer to ascend on Yellow Wall some times, than one time to climb on that ice-fall.

MR: There have come a lot of powerful climbers to ascend the Northern Face of Jannu. And each expedition has own history about why they receded. In your opinion, whether there is one general reason explaining all these unsuccessful attempts?

A.O.: Do you play computer games? Neither do I, but I approximately know, that that is like. Imagine a computer game where you can shoot and can be shot. At the first level you are sure to be shot by a mutant from behind a corner, but the next time you will precisely know, that it will jump out from there, and you will be ready and shoot at it first. Then you will pass on the next level. Here is the same. You must know:
1. The ice-fall is gone round.
2. The Rocks are passable.
3. It takes one day to reach from the base camp to the spending a night place at 5600m.
There is the excellent safe place, a flat platform, you are able to settled a tent or even two ones there and live in clover.
4. At 5600m it is possible to organize ABC, the advanced base camp.
5. To pass on the plateau is simple but you have to go only such curved route, instead of any another ones, and not to stray. That way you can husband your time not reconnoitering.
6. It is necessary to settle the next camp for spending a night at 6500m, not lower and not higher. Because at 6500m it is possible to dig a snow cave because you are able to easy ascend from 5600m up to 6500m for a day and because you can ascend from 6500m up to 7000m for a day too, due to a difference in the altitudes and technical difficulties. If you settle a camp at 6200m, for example, you will not reach the following camp for a day. At 6500m it is possible to dig a cave and settle an intermediate camp, than you are able to settle a tent on a snow ridge meters on 300 lower, it is safe because it is a little way away. Without that cave you won't settle the next camp, as for a day you can climb up to 6500m, only dig a cave there and can't settle a tent there because of a threat of an avalanche if even the minimal snowfall begin.
7. At 7000m it is possible to dig a cave too, and it is not necessary to lift a platform and a tent there.

All these things you must know, and you will not read them anywhere, you have to base only on your own experience. That all we have learned was our own experience. We bumped a lot of lumps so we lost a lot of time. We ascended up to 7000m for a whole month: on 08.09.03 we came there and 04.10.03 we climbed at 7000m. Only that team has a chance to summit this top which will reach up to 7000m for two weeks with acclimatization, mark my words, because you have to take 20 days for climbing this Wall unequivocally. The wall is cold, constantly becomes covered by snow and ice, when there is a bad weather there. Taking into consideration the high altitude you can't work much at it. The Wall is very abrupt, very hard wall. You have to reserve 20-25 days for it; otherwise you have nothing to do there. Can you imagine if you are ascending for a month and you need a good weather for that? In fact, where will you get such a long period of a good weather? The nature in itself will not give you to carry out your plans. And it is the most principal cause. The second, people became to be worn out morally and physically for a month. The key moment is to organize the ABC at 5600m with the object of the economy of the whole day. And what is the ABC like? It is a solar battery, an awning is not on a tent, but between tents, and you are able to sit at a table talking with friends, listening to music. And you would relax and have a rest.

The absence of the due information and the due analysis of this information spoil the people. I read the Grigoryev's report about the results of the Uzbek expedition. He wrote that he knew how to climb the Wall: "It is ascended by the mobile four of climbers in alpine style with their preliminary acclimatization on the neighboring mountain." I consider it as the full nonsense. Any next mountain is lower 7000m in any case, and the problems will begin above seven thousand. Any mobile four climbers will not ascend these two mountains successively.

MR: Do you have your own conception of the optimum number of climbers in a team?

A.O.: Seven people. Why have I decided so for myself? Frankly speaking I approached this expedition in a disgusting physical form though the whole winter I was training and preparing, but the preparation of the expedition took so much moral and physical strengths at me. I was dog tired, really was ready to drop, and literally words, I had nervous exhaustion. It hardly came to me. Therefore I counted myself as the seventh climber. I planned that three two of climbers were working on the Wall, on a regular basis changing each other. The first two climbers have a rest, the second two ones approach, the working two ones start to descend, having had a rest two ones start the route and so on. And I stay between them all the time, at 5600m, 6500m to coordinate their actions, to speak on a portable radio set whom where to go, start to descend and to control their condition. As required I substitute for the one who demands substitution. The seventh climber is as a free defender. The leader must all the time hold a hand on pulse. After an accident with Mike Mikhailov we remained as a group of six. At once it turned out that I had to work in the two. When you are breakdown working, descending to the base camp with your tongue on a shoulder, what is the leadership, to hell, I have to implement? And then I dropped out the working climbers remained five. Sometimes it happened, the two worked on the route, descended, and the three had to ascend to the top point for three days.

MR: Do you know already the names of the climbers are going to participate the expedition there next year or you do not know yet?

A.O.: With the certain share of probability I know but It is too early to speak about it. I can tell that Davy will not go. The others, I think, will do. Accordingly, we have to find a replacement to Davy. And, maybe, we will take the eighth climber to our team, just in case of such incidents. It would not be a bad thing.

MR: How do you consider the team worked well together?

A.O: Normally, there weren't any conflicts. All of us have already climbed together for ages, only Nikolay Totmyanin is the new person in the team, but he is the climber of such high level and the person of such tolerance, that in my opinion, he would join in any team without serious consequences. Bolotov has enormous experience too and, then, he and Mike Davy are good friends. Mike Mikhaylov is simply the soul - person. The Guys are very good.