Very experienced Catalan mountaineers (Rafa Vadillo, Xavi Pérez Gil and Anton Fontdevila), together with the ruso climber Ivan Témerev, settled in one of the less consecrated regions of Siberia to climb the waterfalls of Hielo.
2018 | 40min | HD | Cat | CC: Esp
Escala Hielo, Siberia, Russia, Exploration
Duration: 40 minutes
Quality: Full HD
Documentary by: Rafa Vadillo
Suitable for all ages
Rafa Vadillo, Antón Fontdevila and Xavi Pérez Gil have converted into los primeros alpinistas que no son de nacionalidad rusa que escalan las cataratas de hielo de Siberia. The three Catalans went on a trip with the mountaineer and activist for climbing ice falls in Russia, Iván Temerev.
Témerev proposed to Rafa Vadillo to go ice climbing in Russia and, on January 13, 2016, together with Antón Fontdevila and Xavi Pérez Gil, they marched towards Siberia, just when a “heat wave” began there. This change in temperatures has been favorable for climbers, because temperatures have not dropped more than -20 degrees Celsius at night and have moved between -10 and -12 during the day.
The first impression is that the ice is very, very hard and breaks into large pieces when the ice ax is driven in, which makes the climb more tiring, having to give several ice axes at each anchor. Of course, the insurance screws are bomb-proof. On the other hand, the amount of ice and thickness at the falls is impressive.
The Chulysman Valley is a special place. A large, lonely and inaccessible hollow. Only one family and four wooden houses is all there is on this site. There is no running water (you have to fetch it from the river) and they have a wood stove that also makes a stove to heat the room.
There is practically no snow on this site. The climate is tremendously dry and cold. Any presence of water is frozen (rivers, lakes, waterfalls,…), everything is frozen.
Mountaineers have climbed the Hrapovskite (300 m, II+/4) and Kra-Tik (160 m, II+/4+) waterfalls, near the village of Aktash at the gates of the Altai Mountains. They also moved to the Chulysman Valley, where they climbed some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the valley, such as the Katu-Yarik (150 m, III/5) and the Baja-Kaya (120 m, III+/5) .
4634 Perception
