Sibley Family and Friends Mount Ararat Expedition Dispatch

August 8, 2013 – A Beautiful Summit Day

It’s just before 4 in the afternoon on August 8th and I am walking with the entire team back into Camp I, our lowest camp on Mount Ararat. There’s been a change of weather on Ararat, there has been loads of clouds today, very unsettled weather; it’s raining right now. But as you can see from these photo’s we had a summit team that reached the top of Mount Ararat in spectacular weather. At 7:45 am brothers and sisters Lexa, Whit, Jack and cousins Jake and Jimmy and of course Mathes Vaughan along with Berg Adventures guides Jamal and Duygu sat on the summit of Mt. Ararat in some pretty considerable wind, but it was beautiful!

Last night after we had adjusted our crampons Kelley and I discussed whether or not she should go to the summit. She has had a lot of pain in her neck, it sounds like a muscle thing, and she has not been able to carry a pack on this whole trip. So we decided that it would probably not be a good summit day for her so Kelley and Marat stayed at base camp while the rest of us started climbing at 2:05 am.

Grandfather Woodie Vaughan and granddaughter Mathes Vaughan climbed together for the first three hours in the darkness while the team climbed just in front of them. At about 15,200 feet Woodie looked at me and said “you know this just isn’t going to happen today”. Woodie and I have been on a number of mountains together and I am proud to say we’ve been on the top of some and I am also proud to say we’ve turned back on some. This was just not the day; Woodie still has a stress fracture from the trekking he did with his other granddaughter Sally in Spain. So he wisely turned around.

Mathes and I went on and we quickly caught up with the rest of the team and we met them at 16,000 feet. There Jack and Cary Sibley talked with me about how Cary was getting extremely cold and Jack was running out of energy quite frequently. That is where Jack and Cary also wisely turned back after a great attempt.

So the way it worked was Mehmet descended with Woodie and after Mathes and I caught up with the rest of the group I descended with Cary and Jack and Duygu and Jamal went on to the summit.

Today was Duygu’s birthday and she took all of the photos you will see here in the dispatch and she did an amazing job. Happy Birthday Duygu!!

We are really proud of the entire team; those of us who made it to the summit and those of us who didn’t. We have been having a fantastic trip and some amazing adventures here in Turkey and there are more to come.

You always see something new in the mountains and I guess that’s what draws us back. Jake made really good time with the lead team today and stood on the summit but he told me when he got back to High Camp that his legs were incredibly sore and tired so we gave him some ibuprofen. But I just watched Jake walk backwards from High Camp to Camp I. As he told me the forward muscles stopped working but the backward muscles didn’t. He walked along with Jamal the entire way, not as slowly as you might think, literally backwards down the mountain.

We are going to rest well tonight and head back to town tomorrow. And we will keep you posted about the rest of our adventures in Turkey. Once again I am really proud of this team.