Mount Aratat & the Wonders of Turkey Expedition Dispatch
July 25, 2013 – Congratulations on a Successful Summit Day!
It’s 2pm on Thursday July 25th and I’m calling you from High Camp to report we had an extremely successful summit day. This amazing group of guys from Holland, aged 66-76, are truly lifelong friends. Some of them have worked in universities together; some were friends in business, politics, academia, family and friends in adventures for a lifetime. Some of them did not get to see each other often for many years because of work and travel but they are at a time in their lives now where they can see each other more often; and they are certainly making the most of it! They have been an amazing group for me to climb with. Eight of them, with the Berg Adventures Staff sat on the summit of Mt. Ararat this morning.
Peter Broekveldt’s hand had gotten cut on a rock yesterday and he did not want to risk staying high so he is now supporting us down at Base Camp with Laurens. The rest of us started climbing at 2am this morning. These guys are a tough group; it was not an easy climb through the darkness and the slopes. And then the wind started! It was pretty amazing, pretty warm temperatures today but there was a really strong wind on the summit. We could not even get a smiling group photo on the summit because it was hard enough for one person to stand up there.
In a couple of days we will be sending you photos from the good cameras of some amazing men climbing to and standing on Mt. Ararat. We are really proud of the accomplishment and we will have plenty more stories to tell you. We are looking now to the fact that we are only spending two more nights in Turkey. It’s been an amazing adventure and congratulations to the whole team!!
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At 8:00am this morning, the team made the final difficult steps in high winds to the summit of Mount Ararat. Congratulations Team!
Peter Idenburg on the Summit. Moments before this photo was taken Peter’s impressive warm Russian hat was blown off his head in the strong summit winds. Peter feels that he has left his hat in an appropriate place and who knows, with wind like this maybe the hat will blow all the way back to Russia!
Jan-Kees Eisenloeffel on the windy summit
Jan-Kees and Evert proud to be on the summit of Mt. Ararat
Jan Dekker returns to Green camp. From 2:00am this morning when we first began climbing to 7:00pm when this photo was taken it was quite a day. We have all returned to Green Camp and Jan’s expression says it all!