During my visit to Pamirs I had plenty of time to think. The acclimatization process takes time. You spend whole days in the camps. In fact, the time you spend ascending or descending is small compared to the periods of inactivity. That’s what big mountains are like. One thing in particular that I had time to reflect on was whether Lenin Peak was really worth having a go at, with everything involved: the risk, remoteness, difficulty and long acclimatization period. In my attempt to quantify how good a mountain might be to snowboard down, many factors came to mind and, as I returned to Spain, I devised a coefficient of suitablility. It’s like giving a score to each mountain. How absurd! Feelings aren´t objective though, thank God. I like the suitability coefficient because it informs, it’s my creation and I’ve never heard of anything like it before. Even so, I prefer gut feelings and so I guess I’ll just keep tackling the mountains I fancy having a go at, provided I feel I’m up to them.
I did fancy ascending this mountain. I don’t know if it has a name by the way. It´s small compared to the ones around it, but it offers a vertical drop of a thousand skiable metres if you attack its North face. I climbed its East face because this was more at hand, but the problem was that to reach the summit that way, you have to go along an uncomfortable crest that I didn´t want to face. This way I suffered my second defeat in Kirghizstan. Two attempts; two defeats. A good dose of humility is never a bad thing to remind us that we shouldn’t go to the mountain expecting success. I’ve been defeated so many times now that it affects me less and less and I know that it makes me appreciate the victories more.
En mi visita al Pamir tuve mucho tiempo para pensar. El proceso de aclimatación lleva su tiempo. Se pasan jornadas enteras en los campamentos. De hecho, el tiempo que se pasa subiendo o bajando es pequeño si se compara con el tiempo de inactividad. Las grandes montañas son así. Una de las cosas que más medité fue si valía la pena intentar el Pico Lenin, con todo lo que ello conlleva: riesgo, lejanía, dureza y largo periodo de aclimatación. En mi intento de cuantificar la bondad de una montaña para su descenso con snowboard barajé todos los factores que me vinieron a la cabeza y, a mi vuelta a España, inventé el coeficiente de idoneidad. Es como poner una nota a cada montaña. ¡Qué absurdo! Las sensaciones no son objetivables, gracias a Dios. Me gusta el coeficiente de idoneidad porque da información, es mi creación y nunca oí hablar de algo así antes. Aún así, más me gustan las sensaciones y, por ello, subiré las montañas que pueda y me apetezca, si me apetece.
Subir a esta montaña, de la que desconozco si tiene nombre, sí me apeteció. Es pequeña si se compara con las de su alrededor, pero ofrece mil metros de desnivel esquiable si se ataca su cara Norte. Yo subí su cara Este porque me pillaba más a mano, pero el problema fue que para llegar a la cima por ahí hay que recorrer una cresta incómoda que no quise afrontar. De esta manera conseguí mi segunda derrota en Kirguizstán. Dos intentos, dos derrotas. Un buen baño de humildad nunca viene mal y nos recuerda que a la montaña hay que ir sabiendo que se puede perder. Yo ya he perdido tantas veces que cada vez me afecta menos y ahora valoro más las victorias.
I really like this peak. It has a very direct descent to Astún and a very appealing slope at the summit. But life isn’t just about climbing mountains. People´s lives change. Just as bullfighters retire from the scene, snowboarders worry more about their life and less about their flow. ‘Flow’? What is ‘flow’? I think I know what it is, but I can´t explain it. You have to feel it. My friend, Luis Alcaraz, who knows quite a lot about this, tells me that there is something comparable in bullfighting that they call ‘duende’. Whatever ‘flow’ might be, I know that it’s less important to me these days. If you think you know why this might be, why not post a comment below?
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