The Ski Journal - Volume 16, Issue 2
THE STUDENT AND THE TEACHER: Decision-Making and Uncertainty in Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan
Words, Photos and Captions: Matthew Tufts 2022-10-31 11:32:44
Skiing the Greater Ranges of Kyrgyzstan may be a misnomer—it’s mostly taking your skis for a walk. Adrien Grabinski follows meandering braided rivers toward the toe of the unnamed glacier where we would make camp with two weeks worth of food. Adrien and I made the 15-plus-mile (each way) slog twice (over 60 miles in total) to porter gear and food to base camp.
The match was as good as over. Checkmate in three, or as little as one, if he screwed up. But that wasn’t the point. Adrien Grabinski hadn’t played in years; I’d been on an internet chess bender the month prior. I wanted to see how his brain worked. I asked how he’d move intuitively, what his immediate reaction would be—that he said, plainly, he wouldn’t. He didn’t have an intuitive sense for the game. A few days later, high above our glacier camp on a steep north face, our situation would flip: Adrien moving intuitively, myself a few steps behind, thinking about how each of the pieces could move.
A mouse scuttled across the edge of the dusty rug that adorned the floor of a dilapidated canvas mess tent and disappeared behind Adrien’s monstrous pack. We wrapped the match and stepped into the fading evening light of Kyrgyzstan’s Terskey Ala-Too mountains. Lush meadows fed by braided glacial rivers lined the narrow trough of the steep valley. The horsemen that owned the accommodation had yet to arrive for the season, nor had the trekking tourists that follow. Thunder rumbled in the distance, mixed with the clatter of loose rockfall from large talus fields flanking the gorge. Storms blew in and out every day—it was impossible to predict when, but was never a question of if. These peaks create their own weather. It felt like monsoon season—a strange realization at the farthest point from an ocean in the world.
Kyrgyzstan’s topography—not its weather or continental snowpack—brought us to Central Asia. More than 90 percent of the nation is mountainous, largely made up of the Tien Shan and Pamir ranges, each boasting peaks higher than 23,000 feet. Our first and primary objective—a “small” 17,000-foot peak in the Terskey, a subrange of the Tien Shan near the city of Karakol—began with a neglected 4x4 road followed by a 15-mile up-valley trundle to the toe of the glacier. Portering our gear took multiple trips.
Skiing in the Greater Ranges of the world is an undertaking that commands respect for both the vastness of these regions and the lack of information about them. Alpinists who pursue lesser-known objectives in these ranges live (and die) by the understanding that, often, there’s no such thing as prior beta.
Kyrgyzstan is out there, a friend cautioned me. A former Soviet republic, the country established independence in 1991, but it’s clear it’s still feeling out a turbulent adolescence. Deteriorating monuments devoted to Stalin and overbearing concrete architecture still loom over its cities. Kyrgyz is the official language, but Russian remains the state language de jure, popular in the capital city of Bishkek and something locals suspect Putin, through shadowy influence from afar, has been keen to maintain as children learn English around the world with increasing frequency. Most people greet each other by saying “salam alaikum” with a warm two-handed handshake—an Arabic salutation common to Kyrgyzstan’s majority Muslim population.
Urban centers market a pseudo-western lifestyle: fast food, fast fashion—fast-forwarding toward an appearance of luxury without the bedrock of quality. Well-to-do city folk proudly recount a half-dozen European and North American countries they’ve visited, yet many have never explored their own country beyond city limits.
Conversely, in Kyrgyzstan’s vast rural steppe, nomadic horsemen, ranchers and shepherds navigate swaths of land hundreds of miles across with an intimate knowledge of the landscape. Unlike the rapid development and modernization of the few cities, this is a way of life only achievable through hundreds, if not thousands, of years of passed-down experience. Geopolitics mean little here—identities are firmly pressed and interwoven like traditional felts over generations.
Where yurts have been replaced by knockoff shopping centers, the tunduk—the central connective structure of yurts—still hangs high on the national flag, a symbol of unity and heritage. Along Kyrgyzstan’s rarely paved mountain passes, we saw dozens of yurts, thousands of livestock and numerous examples of our own skewed perception. I caught myself wondering if a rural horseman wearing a hand-knit sweater was more “authentic” than another wearing a knockoff Adidas tracksuit. Kyrgyzstan is a nation in the midst of rapid development, with contrasts old and new. Even if the roads are paved one day, the shepherds will still ferry their flocks down the pass come autumn.
En route to Karakol, a local farmer invited us for tea and dinner. We shared home-baked bread and jam made from fruit harvested from his orchard and held an entire conversation through Google Translate on his teenage daughter’s phone. We explained the difference between poutine and Putin. Tea made the rounds in small bowls, and we noticed there was always one more dish, placed intentionally, than the number of individuals. When we hit the road toward the mountains, we left a seat open for hitchhikers amid the gear explosion in our packed rental—generosity is a gift best passed along.
It felt like monsoon season—a strange realization at the farthest point from an ocean in the world.
The long, slow approach provided ample time for conversation. Although we’ve known each other for a couple of years, in the general scheme of things, Adrien and I hadn’t spent a lot of time together. We met, serendipitously, in the parking lot of Shames Mountain Co-op in northern British Columbia in the spring of 2020. I stepped out of my pickup camper to find a few feet of fresh snow and, surprisingly, Adrien, who’d spent the night camped just beyond the ropes in a snow cave.
We skied together that day, the following and the next several after that. We shared some of the deepest days of our lives and teamed up on a 36-hour mission to a striking steep fin where he notched a possible first descent. When I left the north, it was apparent that neither this young ski patroller’s bold accomplishments nor his aspirations were in the public eye. He simply loved skiing and the community at Shames.
To this day, Adrien is the consummate professional amateur. He approaches skiing with erudite professionalism: line choice, snow conditions, ski tuning—calculated decisions, researched, tested and observed with meticulous attention to detail.
But in the intrinsic sense, the word “amateur” refers to the love and passion with which an individual pursues a pastime. At Shames, Adrien lives on the hill above the maintenance shed (there are no official accommodations at the ski area). It’s rent-free and allows him to get up at 3 a.m. to start plowing the parking lot, one of a half-dozen hats he wears, along with director of ski patrol—a position he landed before he could legally drink a beer in the States. His first descents are solo and he typically doesn’t tell anyone when or where he plans to go. He wakes at midnight, drops at sunrise, and returns home in time to open the hill. He dumpster dives for groceries, but has an affinity for French cheese.
In recent years, his skiing has earned him some free gear and even caught the eye of Matchstick Productions (who filmed with the then-21-year-old for Stomping Grounds in 2021). But for Adrien, skiing in front of a camera usually results in a lot less actual skiing—he won’t compromise passion for exposure.
We cemented the plans for Kyrgyzstan this past spring on the Shames T-bar. It felt like an opportunity for him to get away from the professional grind and get closer to why he loved skiing. He arrived in Kyrgyzstan without a phone, intent on experiencing a vibrant land and culture with skiing as the medium to build that bridge.
The inconsistencies of Kyrgyzstan’s cultural identity are mirrored by its temperamental graupel storms. The spherical styrofoam snow is a fleeting sign of weather volatility and an approaching window—one can generally expect a short burst of intense precipitation accompanied by a clearing.
Nature’s ephemeral Dippin’ Dots graced Adrien and I more than once between valley bottom and our base camp in the glacial cirque beneath our primary objective. We had eyes on a beautiful fluted curtain draped across the upper reaches of a face pockmarked by seracs, bergschrunds and gaping crevasses. There was no fan, no runout, just thousands of feet of complex exposed terrain below. We could see where the spines naturally sloughed and identified a prow that Adrien was frothing to ride.
Kyrgyzstan is a nation in the midst of rapid development, with contrasts old and new. Even if the roads are paved one day, the shepherds will still ferry their flocks down the pass come autumn.
After moving camp up the glacier, Adrien set off for a quick solo scouting lap up a steep ramp on the same aspect as our objective. We determined a photo would look better from the base, so I kept an eye on him through my long lens. Adrien enjoys skiing solo. He returned with mixed beta. On one hand, the climbing conditions couldn’t be better—a thin layer of firm, cold snow coated penetrable ice below, cruisy in crampons with a single piolet—but the skiing conditions left something to be desired. The very cold snow showed no signs of instability, but didn’t leave much room for edge hold—you could control your descent, but a full stop wasn’t guaranteed. The best skier I’d ever met told me he was survival skiing.
That night was calm and clear. A gentle breeze ruffled the walls of the tent and moonlight illuminated the hulking massif before us. We slept soundly. The mountain, however, did not.
We awoke to a scattershot of grapefruit-sized debris strewn across the crusty glacier, evidence of larger activity high above. No sooner had we mentioned the new landscaping when a monstrous serac high on the peak loosed another barrage—ice, snow and rock careening to a pluming crescendo across our proposed approach.
We agreed we weren’t going to climb that route anymore, but we had left any world of certainties long ago.
Seracs are notoriously unpredictable. Glacial ice moves, gravity pulls, seracs tumble. When and where is anyone’s guess.
Just right of the line was a steep alternate route with access to the upper reaches of our face. The spines, we reasoned, were cold, much like the stretch Adrien skied the day prior. Three thousand feet up, north-facing and pitched enough that anything not solidly adhered had already sloughed. The first 1,800 feet of climbing were steep snow and ice directly under another serac.
By contrast, this block of teetering ice was a fraction of the size and teetered at a far less dubious angle than the one we watched crash to Earth that morning. Serac fall in one location makes serac fall everywhere feel more probable, but ignores the fundamental rule of seracs: They’re unpredictable. We were comfortable with the risk prior to watching the other serac collapse. The odds hadn’t changed despite our observations, and our ascent was now more direct. After an hour of debate, we decided to go for it.
Cruising up the initial ramp, we were careful not to dawdle underneath the looming hazard. The snow below was cold—icy at times, but with pockets that could make for great turns. The crux was an exposed traverse just below the serac—close enough to touch it, with slick granular crystals atop bulletproof gray glacial ice. Water dripped from large icicles. Somehow the air felt warmer. We pitched out the section—Adrien led, I followed, and the two of us pulled out from around the serac to what should have been views of the spines above.
But during our brief climb, our vision blocked by overhanging ice, weather had moved in. Thin clouds let in flat light, obfuscating definition. Graupel began to fall. Not the usual sprinkles, but in torrents. I scooped a fistful from the bootpack and sifted it through my bare hand. I called up to Adrien excitedly—the weather should blow out, I said. We’d get our window.
Even above the serac, our position was precarious. A double fall line funneled to cliffs below. Lateral movement exposed us to the precipitous edge of the serac we’d just circumvented. A bergschrund lay between us and the spines. But we were on a good pace and making clear, team-oriented decisions.
The first wet-loose slide ran off to our right, presumably releasing from the rock outcropping above. We adjusted our line and kept climbing. Topping out was our only safe zone. When the second ran next to the first, it was clear something had changed. The clouds didn’t clear; they simply thinned. Sunlight entered, bounced off the snow, and stayed trapped below the clouds, heating up the mountain around us. We needed to get off the face. Immediately. We took off packs to pull skis and remove crampons. Adrien’s voice broke the shuffle, calm but direct.
“Straight above us.”
Seracs are notoriously unpredictable. Glacial ice moves, gravity pulls, seracs tumble. When and where is anyone’s guess.
Wet-loose slides don’t release like slabs or seracs. There’s no crack, no thunderous roar, no fanfare, rarely even an “oh no” moment. They start slowly and gain momentum exponentially. What sounds like a rainstick hits with the force of a freight train. Adrien and I grabbed piolets and braced for impact.
Thrown backward, washed under, spun right-side up and pushed back above. Two seconds or 20. I’ll never know.
I remember the ringing silence. Holding a single ski I don’t recall grabbing. Calling Adrien’s name three, four, five times. Seeing nothing above and spinning around to see him standing below, 30 feet shy of the cliffs, holding a ski of his own and pointing to another of mine. We had both swum out of the slide and arrested, but that left us exposed with nearly all our gear swept off the mountain.
I descended to my second ski as Adrien worked out a new descent. He moved gracefully on a single ski, piolet in hand, navigating sections of ice, isothermic snow and crevasses to a bench below the cliffs where the debris had deposited. I popped on my second ski and followed, slower and admittedly more than a little wobbly.
Miraculously, Adrien found his ski and most of our gear in the debris pile. He handed me two poles and we cut back to the ascent route, on edge until we hit the flat glacier below.
We returned to camp shaken, confused, frustrated with ourselves, yet grateful to be alive. It didn’t take long to dive into tense conversation. We questioned if this story had compromised our intentions, the presence of a camera, perhaps thinking we’d bring back more than the experience and ourselves. Adrien usually skis his biggest lines alone. He tells no one. The fin-shaped face of our original meeting in British Columbia was the first he had shared. I hoped Kyrgyzstan wouldn’t be his last.
The conversation turned to my dual roles as ski partner and journalist. I’ve always leaned toward being part of my story, but not the driving force; a vehicle for a larger picture. It’s a difficult balance, being invisible and involved. You do the best you can. But as a partner in the alpine, you have to be vocal about your decisions and observations. You can’t just listen—it’s a dialogue.
Avalanches aren’t fresh starts that wipe the slate clean. They’re messy, convoluted trails of wreckage. Slides dig shit up that’s been buried, and then bury it more. Everything is churned up. Sometimes you need the turnover, like a pitchfork to compost—things that haven’t been put to rest come into the light, decay, and provide a bed for new growth in their wake. Sometimes weeds grow in your compost.
I learned more about Adrien and myself in the 24 hours after the slide than at any other point on our trip. It was a necessary bushwhack, a time to process volatile emotions, but an exhausting affair that bared its teeth in tense exchanges and sore feet. We came down from the high country, but desperately needed a grounding experience.
Just past the vacant canvas tents we’d borrowed on our approach, we unintentionally found it. A crew of locals in faded fatigues beside a pair of UAZs (Soviet jeeps) confronted us, gesturing for our park passes. We didn’t have them, but fortunately skis make for great conversational currency, particularly far from snow. Whether the crew’s chief heard or understood that our passes were in the car didn’t seem to matter as he took one look at our skis and perked up enthusiastically. A lot more pointing and gesturing led to our confused and reciprocated pointing and gesturing that eventually became smiles, nodding and a warm welcome to socialize around the campfire.
Culturally, I took to the task of bridge building—sipping vodka and tea with a cohort of former Soviet soldiers who recounted combat tales from the front lines of Eastern Europe to Afghanistan. Adrien took to the task more literally, lending a hand with the construction of a river crossing. An alpine construction worker in the summer, he stepped into a leadership role within the first hour of meeting our new friends, directing tensioning of the span’s suspension cables. I stood to assist but was promptly given another shot of vodka (it wasn’t presented much like a question). I obliged, determining my role was that of student of culture while Adrien delivered a nonverbal thesis on physics and mechanical advantage.
My mind drifted that final night, as it had for many nights, back to the line, the decisions that led us there and the ones that got us out. A world of rock and snow, so far from binary.
We worked with our new friends for five days in a blur of vodka and newspaper-rolled tobacco. The next couple of weeks passed in a haze of gravel switchbacks, corner store ice creams and a lack of road signs. We skied on grass, drove across playas, and waded through muddy riverbeds looking for trout.
Outside a small village in the foothills of the Tien Shan, Adrien cast his fly rod with meditative consistency. A lifelong student, he studies the water, matches the hatch, and makes calculated choices about a fluid environment. He ties his own flies. But when it comes to movement, he goes by feel. He casts unconsciously. There’s a momentary pause, subtle and required, between his back and forward casts. It’s not unlike the moment he clicks into his skis atop a consequential line.
I observed with my camera. We were both in our elements. After an hour or so, I asked if I could try—I’d never cast a fly rod before. He borrowed the camera and we taught each other what we knew. We spoke about doing a fishing trip somewhere exotic. I’ll need to practice before then.
We’d been out of the alpine for a week at that point. We had nowhere to be and everything to learn. Our days filled with challenging philosophical conversations about value, time, comparison and upbringing. Our bellies filled with dozens of new foods. I watched Adrien choke down the sourest of fermented milks. Adrien watched me digest some ideas I’d never considered. Both were hard to stomach at times. Both were better shared. We needed that time. We let go of skiing aspirations and leaned into the liminal pause in-between.
Half-finished new hotels adjacent abandoned Soviet cement stood in sharp contrast against the evening haze settling over Bishkek. We sat on the back of our rental car (and home for the past month) on our final night and emptied a bottle of vodka that’d seen more of the country than most locals. We cheered to good health (den-soolukka!), one for the road (pososhok!), Kyrgyzstan, friendship and a few things that blurred together by the time we’d gotten that far.
We pulled out the chess board a final time—31 pieces and a black rock that subbed for a missing rook. We were tipsy and tired. Still, Adrien asked questions as we played, acknowledged strategy, and ran scenarios out loud. I won again, but it was close. We played with intention and both learned—the student and the teacher, the analytic and the intuitive.
My mind drifted that final night, as it had for many nights, back to the line, the decisions that led us there, and the ones that got us out. A world of snow and rock, so far from binary.
It’s estimated that an unfathomable 10 to the 120th power unique games exist in chess. And yet, even that number is finite. The game ultimately unfolds within a fixed container of rational moves. The high alpine requires you to engage in games of logic as well as chance. Seracs and cornices, graupel and the Greater Ranges—they exist in something more ephemeral, a space beyond black and white squares. Roulette, perhaps.
When we met in the airport, the plan was to write a profile on Adrien—his talent and humility, his methodical approach and instinctual performance. After our close call, I thought it was a story about a slide in Kyrgyzstan. But thousands of avalanches come down in the Tien Shan every year. It’s less our chance presence than our reflection that gives it significance. The story has become one of reconciliation with the decisions, the events, the aftermath.
I’ve been through seven drafts with my editor. Each revision yields a temporary catharsis—a feeling it’s settled. Each version back ties a knot in my stomach—a reminder it’s not.
During our exit, Adrien and I passed an ancient gnarled pine twisting through talus—exposed roots revealed the simultaneous strength and fragility of its position. Our partnership felt similarly exposed by the slide. The path ahead was still convoluted. Mature conifers take decades to make a healthy return. The first growth after an avalanche is often a thicket of alder.
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