Mount Aratat & the Wonders of Turkey Expedition Dispatch
August 21, 2013 – Watching the Snow Fall and Reflecting at High Camp
The weather on Mount Ararat is always changing. Don't kid yourself, this is a real mountain, a big mountain, and it is very serious and very beautiful, and we saw all of that today. Right as the summit team reached the edge of the snowcap it began to snow lightly but quickly we had quite a violent hail storm and some thunder and lightning and I learned the same was going on here at High Camp. As our summit team continued to descend it wasn’t long before we were walking in several centimeters of snow down through the rock. It actually made the descent through the rock easier. All of this happened very suddenly and of course at the end of our long summit day. But we are fine and we are here at High Camp where we have decided to hold tight tonight and do the rest of the descent in the snow when our legs are more rested. Mehmet is going to cook us a great meal here.
In case you are wondering, it did snow on Valentine last night but she is doing fine as well down in Camp I. We miss her and we are looking forward to being re-united tomorrow. We are going all the way down to Dogubeyazit tomorrow where we will go into town; there are lots of things on the agenda: showers, some great food, a carpet factory and a little bit of shopping. After tomorrow we will go to the big airport in Van and then back to Istanbul. It was a great success on the mountain today. I am enjoying sitting here right now watching it snow lightly again and seeing the whole mountain completely white all the way down to the plains. Congratulations to the team and we will keep you posted on the rest of our adventure as it continues.
Listen to Wally's call
Soon after we started our descent from the summit is when the snow really started coming down.
When we returned to High Camp this is what we found: lots of snow!
It is time to dig out our tents at High Camp!
After a wild day of weather Ararat became clear again at 6:00 PM- just like last night.