MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall / Winter 2017

FALL/WINTER 2017 MLCM 103 By the end of our 15 days in the Pamirs, we had walked/toured over 170 kilometres and climbed/rode 14,500 metres of vert. We eventually did top out and spent two days riding those beautiful lines of our main ob- jective, the spine wall. Filming and ripping big, sick, totally isolated lines in the middle of a country I knew nothing about two months ago helped drive everything home for me. We had pushed ourselves beyond exhaus- tion every day, working together and fully committing to the process of putting ourselves in the right position at the right time to capture fleeting moments; and it was amazing. Hiking back across the plateau toward Saray Mogul, we laughed at how Rafa’s overly ambitious plan had come together into a successful trip that really did help us connect to a culture and landscape we’d barely even known existed. Driving back to Bishkek, I reflected on Kas’s early comment that the Kyr- gyz were the “people of the mountains.” The meaning was lost on me at first; aren’t we all people of the mountains? Now, just five weeks later, I understood. The Kyrgyz people don’t just live in the mountains, they have an energy that radiates the mountains. Centuries of nomadic roaming of the landscape has made them a part of the land itself—their skin wrin- kled from the sun and wind, hands calloused from working the soil, smiles large from true joy, and eyes sparkling with a sense of independence. Each interaction opened my eyes and heart to the beauty of the Kyrgyz people. For Rafa’s film about connections, perhaps it is best to end with words from Kas’s father Akylbek, a lifelong mountaineer—“We all come from the same roots, and we welcome you to these mountains.” Check out a Connections : Krygyzstan webisode and learn more about the film at Mountainlifemedia.ca/connections Guarded by giant peaks with huge hanging seracs in the distance, it looked like it belonged more in Alaska than Kyrgyzstan. Who would have thought we'd find spine walls at 4,500 M in the middle of nowhere Kyrgyzstan? Rafael Pease, that's who.