Agori Please!

[Arpa]

I know. I know.

This article will be remanded to the trashcan of HyeForum as it is not written by a Turk and it is not loaded with the all time catchy G-word.

I am glad I was forced to search and find the below site and article.

Note the highlights by me about Agori.

Did I miss any?

We call it Masis, others may call it R R T or Agri, ignorant of the fact that “agri” is no more then a corrupted/turkified version of AGORI. Speaking of which. In the Armenian language “agori/aghouri” simply means “vine” as in “grape vine”, no thanks to that “drunken idiot” Noah who is fabled to have planted the first grape vine and gotten drunk by its fermented fruit.

I have a copy of Parseghian’s ARARAT BECKONS mentioned below, where one can see , as if the light of day, the remnants of the town of Agori , If in fact, after all this exposure is still around with all the Khachkars/grave markers with Armenian scripts strewn around!

I know! it is long and arduous , but do please read the following article.

I have highlighted as need be , yet be sure to spot where I have failed, like references to Abovian, Parrot et al.. And see how many times I may have missed reference to AGORI.

Agori Please!

Akorri, if you must!

R R T???

Please bear with me. I know it is a long read, but may be worth every word.

 

http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/fea12240501.htm

 

 

climbing ararat: then and now

By Philip K. Ketchian

 

Day One: Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Dogubayazit. I was sitting on pins and needles, on a bench in front of the Isfahan Hotel in Dogubayazit, a drab and sweltering border town of squat cinderblock buildings, whose main industry, as rumor has it, is smuggling, and possessing all the charm of a New Year’s Day hangover. Since early sunrise we had been all packed and ready to go, a last minute glitch had, however, left us grounded for an indefinite period. Elsa and I had flown from Boston and arrived in Van via Istanbul the previous day. From Van we were picked up by the Anatolian Adventures van and driven the 100-mile distance to Dogubayazit. The Isfahan had been known as the Ararat Hotel in the past and is popular amongst climbers; its lobby has been likened to Rick’s Bar in the film Casablanca by some old-time “Ark hunters.”

We were waiting for the local military district commander’s signature to the final of the half dozen permits that would clear the way for us to climb the mythical mountain. Sinan, our Turkish guide, was assuring us that it was just a matter of time. It didn’t help to know that I was the problem, or more precisely, my Armenian name was. A senior army general had popped up from headquarters for a surprise inspection, so the otherwise willing local commander had astutely hidden away our passports and permit applications, not wishing to draw undue attention to my name. Our backpacks and duffel bags had been loaded on our van some time ago. The grating sound of the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer filled the air once again.

Waiting on tenterhooks, I was doing my best not to reveal my high state of anxiety. What was I doing here anyhow? How did I get myself in this position? I looked around to note that all my teammates, including Elsa, have had experience climbing mountains significantly higher than this. This was to be my most ambitious climb. As a matter of fact the highest peak that I had climbed to date was a full 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) lower than this one. Even Camp 2, which we would reach on the third day of the expedition, is higher. It was exciting to think that I would be attempting to nod off to sleep at an elevation somewhat higher than I had ever been!

Our team was composed of four climbers: my wife Elsa, two fine English gentlemen—Alan Williams, who had worked in the information technology business and Cliff Jackson, a Baptist minister—and myself. We were most fortunate to have three guides assigned to us; Karl Farkas from KE Adventure Travel in Britain, Sinan Halic, president of Anatolian Adventures based in Istanbul, and Apo Kara, our second local guide. We were also lucky to have Jamal, a climber himself, to serve as the expedition’s cook and quartermaster.

It did nothing to my foreboding when Sinan had amicably tried to assure me that he would personally see that I would get up his mountain. “Our mountain,” I corrected him diplomatically, determined as ever before to summit atop “my mountain,” Mount Ararat. But what if after coming so close I alone was denied this final permit? ... I knew that I must think positive and shake off such defeatist thoughts.

It had all begun in April 2002, when I received a brochure from KE Adventure Travel’s American office in Colorado. KE (for Karakoram Experiences) is a British company that had pioneered some of the first expeditions in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan. The brochure was full of beautiful photos of all the exotic expeditions that they were organizing worldwide. Leafing through its pages my eyes suddenly caught sight of something so familiar to me, Mount Ararat! It stated that the Turkish government had recently lifted its restrictions and once again opened the mountain to climbers, and so KE was organizing their first ever expedition to Mount Ararat the following year in July 2003.

My heart was pounding and I broke out in a sweat. I read and re-read the write-up. I felt it to be a personal invitation especially addressed to me. I recognized this to be my chance. I couldn’t wait to show it to Elsa. What would her reaction be? Later that day, without comment, I brought it to her attention. Her eyes brightened, and her smile widened. She sprang up raising her hands as she exclaimed, “We’re doing this together.” The die was cast; there would be no turning back now.

The following day I called KE Adventure Travel in Colorado and signed us up for the trip. They were interested in our past mountaineering experience, thus the process was set in motion. A list of necessary clothing and equipment was to follow. I recalled a warning Henry David Thoreau issued in the first chapter of Walden, “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” I didn’t feel it applied to us because we had almost everything, excluding crampons and ice axes, which we immediately set out to purchase. I pulled out of storage the beautiful brand-new Scarpa heavy mountain boots, waiting for such an occasion. This was just one of a half-dozen different boots I had stocked up on when the Boston distributor went out of business a few years ago. They would require some breaking in. Next I splurged on a pair of photochromatic glacier glasses with variable light transmission adjusting to the intensity of the ambient light, with prescription lenses correcting my astigmatism, and with progressive gradient bifocals. The one-year-plus lead-time would provide ample time to prepare us physically and psychologically for the rigors that lay ahead.

Over the past 12 years Elsa and I have had the pleasure of hiking extensively in the mountains of the Northeast United States, in addition to the mountains in Spain, France, Switzerland, Japan, and Armenia, including Mount Aragats and Mount Azhdahak. We have also deliberately done some climbs in adverse weather conditions in order to gain the necessary experience. This schooled us in selecting the proper foul weather clothing and equipment, and how to use them.

Meanwhile, I searched the available literature for information on the mountain, maps and photos, and firsthand accounts of both successful and unsuccessful attempts. To my disappointment, no good detailed maps suitable for climbing were to be found, and neither KE nor Anatolian Adventures ever supplied us with one. Imagine climbing in this day and age without a proper topographical trail map. Luckily, I had had the foresight over a decade ago to order one (1:200,000 scale) from a publisher in England, which was now out of print and unavailable.

KE sent us its Visitor to Mount Ararat Guide with tips on staying healthy, immunization shots, clothing, footwear, gear, food and drink, and also advice on purchasing mandatory emergency medical and evacuation insurance, in addition to trip cancellation insurance. A list describing the various symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness and its prevention followed.

The Turkish government maintains tight control over the mountain. Ararat had been off limits to climbers until it was reopened in 2002. Individuals wishing to climb the mountain are subjected to a background security check requiring a special-purpose climbing visa, and the issuance of permits from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, the Ministry of Tourism, the governor of the province, and the commander of the local military police. These procedures can take up to three months. Climbers from Armenia are usually flatly refused. Many Armenians from the diaspora are also often refused. That is why I chose to sign up with a non-Armenian group.

At last, by 11:00, to the relief of all, our final permit was signed and, with our gear packed and ready, we boarded the van. Our driver started up the engine and headed north crossing the two busy downtown commercial streets full of men seated at outdoor cafes drinking tea and coffee, and playing cards or backgammon under a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke. The driver negotiated his way between teenage boys pushing carts full of vegetables and fruits, but mostly watermelons. It was high season for watermelons and they were everywhere. I was made aware of that last night when the trucks loaded to their tops rumbled into the wholesale food market across the street from our hotel window in the early hours after midnight.

The van made a sharp right hand turn on to the highway, which also marks the northern end of the town and traverses the alluvial plain leading east to Iran. We soon approached the military checkpoint, where Sinan alighted and walked over to and entered the guard booth to present our passports and permits. A Soviet-designed armored combat vehicle was parked conspicuously on the shoulder of the road, ready to intercept any trespasser, its cannon menacingly trained toward the road. The main army base, with American M-60 battle tanks forming its core, was situated nearby. The soldiers peeked into our van but all was well, and we were allowed to proceed on our way. From here one had an unobstructed view of Mount Ararat, its towering peak some 15 miles away as the crow flies (that is if the local birds do fly straight) gleaming in the noon sun, its features, however, fading with the thickening of the summer haze. As beautiful and majestic as the mountain is from the south, there is no question in my mind that Ararat reveals its best side to the north—toward Yerevan.

Soon the van turned left off the highway onto a dirt road heading toward Eli, our starting off point. The desiccated landscape unfolding ahead of us, devoid of trees, was baking under the sun’s merciless rays. No sign of man or animal was visible, only our van speeding up the foothills, kicking up clouds of dust in its wake, and the mounting thrill of high adventure. We reached Eli, which serves as a summer settlement for nomadic Kurds grazing their cattle on the slopes of the mountain. It consists of a few dozen tents and one stone structure.

Our van stopped at what could be construed as the village square. The shepherds were ready and waiting to haul our gear up to Camp 1. The packhorses and donkeys were there too. After unloading the van the Kurds loaded up the horses and donkeys. Lacking saddlebags, they haphazardly secured our duffel bags with pieces of frayed ropes tied together. Then the van turned around and headed back to Dogubayazit.

I took out my GPS unit (Global Positioning System) to measure the elevation. It read precisely 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) above sea level. With this reading I calibrated my barometer/altimeter. We headed toward the trailhead. The summit was obscured from this vantage point by a massive lava hillock to our north. Most climbing groups begin their trek from a spot 660 feet (200 meters) higher in elevation.

Shouldering our light backpacks and carrying only water, snacks, and foul weather gear, we headed west along a neglected, long-abandoned dirt road that soon rounded the lava hillock and snaked northward. From here on our trek would follow in a general NNE direction. The summit some six miles away on a straight line and 10,292 vertical feet (3,137 meters), or nearly two vertical miles above us, playing hide and seek among the clouds, loomed as an impregnable fortress. In the Iliad, Homer describes Mount Olympus, the divine abode of the gods of ancient Greece, as tall and shear and protected by clouds and darkness enshrouding the sacred summit, which form the “utmost gates” guarded by the Horae, who open and close the gates only for the immortals, barring passage to ordinary mortals. Ararat is said by the locals to be guarded by the Zone of Spiders, the Zone of Bears, and the Zone of Snakes.

From here on any climber could only rely upon himself. I took a long swig from my water bottle and trudged on.

Mountains have always held a mystique for humans. They have been objects of fear, reverence, and inspiration. We are drawn to mountains for many reasons—economic, scientific, aesthetic, and also adventure. Moreover, they are one of the last patches of wilderness one has to escape from the pressures of modern life.

Barren mountaintops are like islands in the sky, surrounded by a sea of vegetation. John Ruskin, the 19th century English writer and critic, once wrote, “Mountains seem to have been built for the human race as at once their schools and their cathedrals.”

Mountains are often described as majestic and mighty. In the presence of high and unapproachable peaks one tends to feel small and insignificant. The fascination of mountains casts a spell on people, drawing them toward the lofty summits with a veiled promise of adventure and spiritual fulfillment.

Mount Ararat occupies a special place in world civilization, largely due to its mention in the Book of Genesis. “And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. And the Ark rested in the seventh month, and on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.” Because of the legend of Noah’s Ark, Mount Ararat has become one of the most well known mountains in the world. According to some legends, the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in the vicinity of the mountain.

Mount Ararat, also known as Masis in Armenian, is the most important symbol of our national identity, and of our ancient homeland. Sometimes Masis is used for the taller peak, and Sis for Lesser Ararat. The name Ararat has its origin in the Bible as “r_r_t” without the vowels. Armenians experience the same spiritual relationship vis-à-vis Ararat, as the Japanese with Mount Fuji, the Hawaiians with Mauna Kea, and the ancient Greeks with Mount Olympus. What traveler has not looked up in awe at its majestic form and marveled at its sublime beauty?

Mother Nature’s bestowal of abundant sunlight together with the sparseness of vegetation paint Ararat in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of visual impressions etched in one’s consciousness. Ararat plays an important role in the art, the literature, and especially the poetry of Armenia. And what, after all, would Armenian artists have done without Ararat? Even Henry Thoreau wrote about that, “antique, brownish-gray, Ararat color.”

The glistening peak looms so real and so unattainable, so near and yet so far away.

Ararat is a state of mind...

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped volcano located some 20 miles south of the border of the modern Republic of Armenia. The peak soars up to an elevation of 16,854 feet (5,137 meters) above sea level, according to the most recent measurements made with precision instruments from satellites in space. This is slightly lower than the previously published height of 16,946 feet (5,165 meters). As a rule, the phrase “Mount Ararat” refers to the higher peak. The smaller cone, Lesser Ararat 12,782 feet (3,895 meters) rises southeast of the main peak. This too has been downgraded from 12,878 feet (3,925 meters). The two peaks are linked together by a saddle about 7,900 feet high. The separation between the two summits is approximately seven miles. The mountain is entirely located in present-day Turkey. It abuts the borders of Armenia, Nakhichevan, and Iran.

Ararat is an extinct stratovolcano that has not erupted in historic times. It was built up gradually in alternating layers of molten lava flows and the buildup of erupted volcanic ash, cinders, blocks, and bombs. Ararat has no visible crater. It was violently shaken by a powerful earthquake in 1840. Tragically, the resulting avalanche of rock, snow, and ice buried the Armenian village of Agori and the Saint Jacob Monastery and Chapel on its northern slope.

The two Ararats straddle the ancient caravan routes, standing proudly alone and towering towards the heavens from the sun-baked Armenian Plateau. Ararat, undisputedly, presents its best side toward Armenia to the north, rising some 14,100 vertical feet from the Arax River. Few mountains anywhere in the world provide such a spectacular view.

In 1254 William of Rubruk, a Franciscan monk returning from Karakoram passed by Ararat. He related the legend of the Armenian monk who, after a number of unsuccessful attempts at climbing the mountain to see the Ark, was visited by an angel who admonished him for his efforts, but out of kindness presented him with a piece of the wood of the Ark. His name was Jacob (Hagop), who was said to be a contemporary and a relative of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, and a monastery was built at that spot on the northern slope at the base of the Agori Gorge. The wood fragment is said to be at the present held in Etchmiadzin.

The Venetian traveler Marco Polo passed through Armenia on his way to China in 1271. About Ararat he wrote: “In the central part of Armenia stands an exceedingly large and high mountain, upon which, it is said, the Ark of Noah rested, and for this reason it is termed the Mountain of the Ark. The circuit of its base cannot be compassed in less than two days. The ascent is impracticable on account of the snow towards the summit, which never melts, but goes on increasing by each successive fall.”

The Dutch traveler Jan Struys passed through the region in June 1670. In the somewhat fanciful account of his experiences published in his book The Perilous and Most Unhappy Voyages, Struys mentions being captured by Tartars to be sold as a slave in Persia. On the way they passed by Ararat. “Mount Ararat is seated just in the parting of Armenia and Medea,” he writes. “It is much higher than either Caucasus, or the famous Taurus, or any other Mountain in all Medea, Armenia or Persia, so far as one can view. It is blew, and dark-coloured Rock.”

He was asked by his captors to visit an ailing hermit on Ararat, to cure him. In his journey up the mountain he describes passing through three sorts of clouds. “The first were thick, misty and dark. The second were cold and like snow, although it was perfect summer in the Valleys, and so warm that the Grapes were very early ripe. The third sort were so cold, that we could hardly endure any longer, and thought verily that we should have grown stiff, and not able to proceed on our Journey. But having now travailed 4 days, we found the Air very temperate and tolerable. We arrived at the Hermits house, which was hewen out of Rock, ...” The hermit presented Struys with a wood fragment from the Ark, and a stone upon which the Ark had rested.

In 1701, the famous French botanist, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort traveled to the Ararat region to study its plant life. In his book titled, A Voyage into the Levant, Tournefort writes: “I have never seen such a more beautiful Country than the neighborhood of the Three-Churches (Etchmiadzin), I am strongly persuaded that Adam and Eve were created there.” “All the Armenians kiss the Earth as soon as they see Ararat, and repeat certain Prayers, after having made the Sign of the Cross,” he observed.

He began climbing up Ararat, “... but not without difficulty: We were forced to climb up loose sands,” he wrote. He found little water on the mountain. Buried up to his ankles in loose sand, slipping and sliding he reached a large patch of snow, but fatigue and queasiness forced him to turn back. Tournefort had hoped to discover some antediluvian plants and flowers on Ararat. “M. Struys would have done us a particular Favour, if he had told us where the Anchorites, he mentions resided;... .” he lamented. It was, perhaps, sour grapes that led him to write that, “This Mountain, ... is one of the most sad and disagreeable Sights upon Earth.”

On the other hand, the British envoy James Morier wrote in his book, A Second Journey Through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor ... that in 1810, “...we had a most splendid view of Mount Ararat. Nothing can be more beautiful than its shape, more awful than its height. It is perfect in all its parts, no hard rugged feature, no unnatural prominences, everything is in harmony, and all combines to render it one of the sublimest objects in nature.”

In 1817, Robert Ker Porter wrote about his encounter with Ararat in his book Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia. “It was not until we had arrived upon the flat plain, that I beheld Ararat in all its amplitude of grandeur. From the spot on which I stood, it appeared as if the hugest mountains of the world, had been piled upon each other to form this sublime immensity of earth, and rock, and snow. The icy peaks of its double head rose majestically into the clear and cloudless heavens; the sun blazed bright upon them; and the reflection sent forth a dazzling radiance, equal to other suns.”

Another British envoy Augustus Mounsey whose carriage was stuck in the middle of a river and awaiting assistance was to write of his travels in A Journey Through The Caucasus and the Interior of Persia, in 1872, that “As we were eating our last morsel of pate-de-foie-gras, out came the sun, and Ararats conical summit appeared sharply cut on the clear background, towering aloft the great mystic mountain stood before me in all its symmetrical beauty. The two cones softened, to my eye, its huge masculine grandeur, and gave it the soft charm of feminine beauty: for the lesser one nestles in the bosom of the greater, like a beautiful flower in the breast of a fair lady.”

After waiting a week without luck for the haze to lift, Tsar Nicholas I left saying, “Too bad for Ararat. It will not have seen the Tsar.”

We departed Eli at about 12:45 p.m., followed by the half-dozen packhorses and donkeys. We had been surrounded by curious Kurdish children, who asked for sunscreen, which appeared to hold a special cachet for them, by rubbing their cheeks with their fingers. Our expedition formed an amorphous group of trekkers and pack animals together with their drivers. After we rounded the lava hillock the summit came back into sight, fast-moving clouds were crashing into its upper slopes blotting out the peak, only to clear up soon again. The noontime sun was mercilessly scorching everything in sight. Ararat is totally void of trees. Only an unusual copse of stunted birch trees has existed on the northern slope of Lesser Ararat, at an elevation of approximately 7,750 feet (2,400 meters). I don’t know in what form it has survived today. Passing by the area in the fall of 1996, I was stunned by the glowing orange-red ribbon from a massive conflagration observable in the pitch darkness of midnight in the general direction from where that patch of woods should be, from just across from the border on the Armenian side of the Arax River. It was a spectacular but sad sight; my companion the then Minister of the Environment of Armenia speculated that it had been set ablaze to flush out the Kurdish rebels.

The air was dry, but the temperature was up in the high eighties, Fahrenheit. We stuck to the dirt track for a while, but it continued to deteriorate the higher we went. This road had been built in the 1980s, and we were told that it reached up to Camp 1. But the years of neglect had taken its toll, and the word was that the local Kurds had always viewed it as a sinister plot to rob them of the income they earned hauling the gear of climbers up the mountain. So the harsh elements of the mountain and the alleged covert actions of the locals have contributed to the disappearance of the track in most places. The slope was still very gentle here. We passed by the spot from where in the past the climbers would begin their trek. I was glad to have started off that much lower—there being so much more of “my mountain” to savor. The road eventually bore left and soon totally disappeared, the freshets from the spring snowmelts had washed it away. Only a deep gully ran where the road had once been.

By now the pack animals were opening up the distance between us. They would reach Camp 1 well before us. The clouds over the summit rolled in and out, but we remained constantly exposed to the scorching rays of the sun overhead. This may be one of the disadvantages of the southern route.

From sunrise in the east to sunset in the west it is relentlessly radiating down on you. There is no shade to be found, no escape. James Bryce had also suffered from the sun in 1876, when traversing the lower northern slopes of the mountain en route to camp at Sardarbulakh. His comments on the situation came to mind quite appropriately; “(T)he management… of the bridle and a big white umbrella, required some dexterity. An umbrella and a horse do seem rather incompatible, not only with one another, but with a mountain ascent; but we would willingly have looked even more ridiculous for the sake of some protection against the fiery shower of beams that descended from the cloudless sky.”

The southern route, however, is the only one open at this time. It is well served from Dogubayazit, and it is perhaps, the safest. The route stays clear of the paths of falling rocks, and the steepest and slipperiest slopes. It is also the easiest for the army to monitor. Sinan related how on a previous climb a member of the team had perhaps walked away too far from his tent for some privacy in the middle of the night. The soldiers using night vision devices had detected it and radioed Sinan to call him back.

We were trekking through rock-strewn alpine meadows where the semi-nomadic Kurds bring their flocks of sheep and goats to graze in the summer. Slowly we approached a yayla, one of the temporary summer encampments, where they live with their families. We skirted it to our left so as not to get distracted and to stay clear of the dogs. The little girls came running over to us holding up pretty hand-knitted woolen socks to sell and, of course, motioning for sunscreen. At this rate we could be out of it soon. The gentle slope of our track was deceptive, for we would be gaining some 4,350 vertical feet (1,325 meters) in elevation on this first day.

The higher we climbed the rockier the terrain became. Underfoot was a trail surface consisting of packed volcanic dust and ash, liberally peppered with scree and scoria. The density of the strewn scree increased with the elevation with talus gradually mixing up with the scree. The scree and talus are ankle-twisters lodged unstably on the surface of volcanic dust and ash. One disregards this only at one’s own peril. Huge igneous rocks and boulders are scattered about. Many of them are lava blocks and lava bombs that have been violently ejected out of the crater during an eruption sometime back in prehistoric times. The blocks have irregular sharp shapes, as they were shot out as solid fragments of lava. The bombs have smoother aerodynamic surfaces; they were shot out of the volcano while still molten magma, solidifying and taking shape while falling through the air, or after landing.

Eventually, Elsa, Apo, and I formed a loose group hiking detached from the rest. We, and especially Elsa were taking note of the wildflowers along the route, many quite similar to those we have seen on Aragats and Azhdahak in Armenia. As a matter of fact, the three mountains form a triangle with Yerevan, the Armenian capital, at its center.

We continued on, the slope was becoming only marginally steeper. It had little resemblance to a mountain trail, if not for the summit in the distance above. At this elevation and vantage point the mountain appeared foreshortened and made up of three different parts; the lower flatter green section that we were presently traversing and that continued up to Camp 1; the rocky, “antique, brownish-gray Ararat color” section which resembled a cake in the form of a truncated cone dropped atop the lower green layer; and the upper dome crowned with a generous dollop of vanilla ice cream with snow-white fingers streaking down the sides. It beckoned and teased us, now hiding coyly behind a veil of clouds, and then boldly revealing itself in all its beauty.

Some three-quarters of the way en route up to Camp 1 we crossed paths with the returning horses that had unloaded our gear up there. We took some breaks to rest and consume our snacks and water. We were enjoying the trek and the beauty that surrounded us. The weather was hot, but otherwise holding steady.

By the time we marched into Camp 1, our tents had been pitched and were ready. It was about 6:30 p.m. The Trango 3000 tent was not very roomy for the two of us, but was quite sturdy. We collected the duffel bags with all our gear packed in them and brought them into our tent. The expedition had also supplied us with a very functional sleeping pad for our sleeping bags. The tent would be our home for the next four nights. Alan and Cliff were doubled up together in a similar tent nearby. Jamal had set up the camp stove and was busy making preparations for our dinner.

This was Camp 1, also known as Green Camp, no doubt, because the immediate area of the encampment was unusually green. Its elevation I measured to be 10,910 feet (3,325 meters) above sea level. It is a large and reasonably level area able to accommodate a few expeditions at a time. A little brook rippled on the western boundary of the camp; it would serve as the source of our water. The water was cool but murky, due to the volcanic dust and ash suspended in it. Pack animals and sheep lingered nearby upstream. The locals had no respect for sanitation.

Everyone was in high spirits. Shuffling about we bunched together and began chatting, commenting on the day’s hike and periodically sneaking glances in the direction of the summit above. A large group of mostly Dutch climbers were camped nearby. Cliff came back to us with the news that all had successfully summitted this afternoon, even though the peak was in the clouds. The news raised our hopes, but didn’t make it any easier for us.

Our soup was ready to be served so we gathered around the tarp spread on the ground. It was delicious; however, with only one camp stove it took a while before Jamal finished preparing the chicken dinner. It was dark by then so we all switched on our headlamps. Desert was watermelons, but this was cut short by a sudden cool rain shower. We all darted into our tents, but fortunately, it was time to get some rest. This development in the weather situation raised some concerns among us.

I had come supplied with Diamox pills, which are often prescribed for preventing Mountain Sickness. It is to be taken twice a day, the instructions, however, stressed it to be begun in the morning. I started it in the evening. Because this was a powerful diuretic, it meant getting up every hour or so, fumbling to unzip the sleeping bag, groping in the dark for my eyeglasses and headlamp, and quietly unzipping the tent flap. Fortunately, there was an exit for each of us on our respective sides. I would then find my boots, and wiggle out of my warm sleeping bag and out of the tent, somehow hoping not to disturb Elsa.

I was immediately immersed into the crisp and crystal clear mountain air. The ink-black sky was clearing up, the stars were out overhead twinkling gaily, and the bright moon was three days past full. Only a few feathery clouds now and then dimmed the spectacular display. The shower had been just a passing event. Thanks to the Diamox, I would witness the progression of the celestial show another half-dozen times. But I was fortunate to be able to return to the tent and immediately nod off to sleep once again.

 

Day Two: Thursday, July 17

Camp 1. This was our first full day on the mountain. It was devoted to acclimatization. We were awakened at seven in the morning. Breakfast was ready by 8:30 a.m. I took a second Diamox. It was a beautiful clear day. At 9:30 a.m., Karl led us on a warm-up acclimatization hike along the route up to Camp 2. We would climb up to 12,300 feet (3,750 meters). By now I had noticed the 125 foot or so difference in the readings between my altimeter/barometer and GPS unit. The GPS acquires radio signals from up to four special satellites orbiting overhead, which it processes and provides readings accurate up to an amazing 10 to 15 feet. The altimeter/barometer measures atmospheric air pressure, which can drift from hour to hour and day to day. One must calibrate it with a fixed unit located at a known elevation off the mountain. Thus, the GPS unit, employing the most modern high-tech systems, is always correct. Alan was wearing a wristwatch with a built-in altimeter/barometer, so he challenged the accuracy of my GPS unit against his. The only way that we could prove this was to compare the readings of both, standing atop the summit, with the latest official elevation of 16,854 feet (5,137 meters) above sea level.

Our exploratory hike went well, and we returned for lunch by 1 o’clock. The large European team of climbers had packed up and left. Earlier they had complained about some missing clothing and gear, and had suspected it to be the work of the Kurdish camp manager who had a tent nearby. We brought the matter up with Sinan, who assured us that given his relationship with the locals, we could be confident of that not happening to us. Furthermore, Jamal always remains at the camps to keep an eye on things. We had the entire Green Camp area to ourselves today. Karl had been observing our progress, and heeding his advice I quit taking Diamox.

We were learning more about our companions. Alan had been signing up for a different KE expedition for each of the past many years. On the previous year’s expedition he had climbed a 23,000-foot (7,000 meter) peak in Tibet. Cliff had climbed Mounts Kilimanjaro and Kenya. Karl was an exceptionally experienced outdoorsman. He had wintered three times in Antarctica and was insured for climbing up to 26,250 feet (8,000 meters). Karl’s experience was very important for a successful ascent. Left to our local guides, for instance, the water would be brought to a hasty boil before consumption. But the boiling point of water at Camp 1 is about 198o Fahrenheit (92o Celsius), and 186o Fahrenheit (86o Celsius) at Camp 2. Karl would make sure to add iodine tablets to purify the water. It tasted terrible, but one was much safer that way.

I had had a good man-to-man talk with Apo on the previous day, while hiking up to Camp 1. He told me of his disappointment of having to abort the final push up a 24,000-foot peak in Central Asia in order to hurry to the rescue of one of his injured teammates. We had also discussed matters of life and, of course, women. It was also becoming clear that the fact that Elsa and I went on such expeditions together was a source of admiration and envy for our companions.

Talking to Sinan, I learned about his ambition of becoming the top organizer of Ararat expeditions. He had been a long-distance open-water swimmer, but had since taken up climbing. Sinan was also prepared to bring climbers from across the border in cooperation with tour organizers in Armenia any time the political situation improved. He mentioned having contact with Avarayr Tours in Yerevan. Quite by coincidence, I knew the people at Avarayr Tours. Elsa and I had climbed Mount Aragats in Armenia in June 2001 with the assistance of their guide Andrei Chesnokov. I put in a few good words for my friends at Avarayr.

Later on, Elsa and I took the time out to reflect on the events of the past couple of days and to savor the pleasure of the solitude the mountain affords. We were in good spirits. Fully consumed by the mountain, we felt the rest of the world was all but a distant memory to us. That night without Diamox I slept blissfully like a log.

The exalted moniker of first mountaineer in the modern sense, i.e. having climbed a mountain for no other purpose than to reach the summit, is often bestowed to the Italian poet Petrarch. His claim to be called the father of mountaineering is backed by the fact of a single climb up the 6,427-foot (1959 meters) Mont Ventoux in Avignon undertaken after exhaustive training in 1336. The age of modern mountaineering, however, began in 1786, when on August 9, Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard and guide Jacques Balmat successfully summitted Mont Blanc 15,771 feet (4807 meters), the highest peak in the European Alps. At the time this news was comparable to the news of the first landing on the moon in July 1969. This triggered a frenzy of attempted first ascents in the Alps and elsewhere around the world. However, climbing Mount Ararat was considered impossible because it was believed that the summit was a cone of ice too steep to scale. In addition, the Armenian Church considered the mountain holy and the resting place of Noah’s Ark, thus discouraging it from being defiled by human feet.

The Russo-Persian War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchai in February 1828, by which the northern half of Mount Ararat was ceded to Russia. This made it safe for travelers to visit the area.

On this occasion, Dr. Friedrich Parrot, a Russo-German professor of physics at the University of Dorpat, in what is presently Tartu, Estonia wrote in his book, Journey to Ararat: “The time was now come for gratification of my long-suppressed aspiration after the mysterious mountain, and a fortunate conjecture presented me with the means conductive to the object I had in view.” Parrot recruited a botanist, a zoologist, a mineralogist, and an astronomer. Parrot was personally interested in the problems of earth magnetism, atmospheric electricity, and temperatures at high altitudes. He received full approval for the project from the emperor Nicholas I, who provided the expedition with a military escort.

Parrot was mesmerized by Ararat since when climbing the Caucasus Range back in 1811, “I stood upon the Kasbeg, during a snow storm, a momentary break in the clouds discovered in the distant south, a high, round, solitary peak—in all probability the silver crown of Ararat.”

After a gruesome 2,300-mile journey they reached Etchmiadzin in mid-September 1829. There they enjoyed a hospitable reception, and as a special honor, Parrot was shown the piece of wood from the Ark, claimed to be the one given to Saint Jacob (Hagop) by the angel.

At Etchmiadzin, Parrot met with the young Khatchadur Abovian, and was very impressed with his intelligence and enthusiasm. At the time Abovian was serving as clerk and translator to Catholicos Yeprem. Fortunately, the Catholicos assigned Abovian to the expedition as interpreter and guide because of his knowledge of Armenian, Russian, Turkish, and Persian.

After the climb, Parrot invited Abovian (1805-1848?) to study at the University of Dorpat. Abovian came to be one of the most progressive intellectuals of the time. Fourteen years later in July 1843, Abovian also accompanied the University of Munich professor Moritz Wagner on the first ascent of Mount Aragats 13,435 feet (4,095 meters) in Armenia.

The Parrot group crossed the Arax River and headed to the Armenian village of Agori situated on the northern slope of Ararat at the eastern foot of the [size4]Agori[/size] Gorge, also known as the Great Chasm, about 4,000 feet above sea level. It is here according to the Armenian legend, that Noah descended and planted the first vine. The group sat down under the foliage to, “...quench our burning thirst, to our hearts’ content, with the delicious grapes just ripening on Father Noah’s vines.” Later, following the advice of Harutiun Alamdarian of Tiflis, they set up base camp at the Monastery of Saint Jacob some 2,400 feet higher, at an elevation of 6,375 feet, as measured by Parrot.

Parrot was one of the last travelers to visit Agori and the monastery before the disastrous earthquake of May 1840, which violently shook the mountain and precipitated an avalanche of rock, snow, and ice from atop the mountain via the gorge that totally buried both the monastery and the village. None of the over 1,500 hundred inhabitants and monks survived the catastrophe. Only a few people who had been elsewhere out of town survived. In his book Parrot provides us with an invaluably detailed description of the village and the monastery.

The first attempt at climbing the mountain nearly ended in disaster. They started up the northeast slope. Their Armenian guide Sahak, a hunter from Agori was forced to turn back from about 13,500 feet, just below the snowcap for lack of warm clothing. Parrot also had to turn back later in full view of the summit. Descending the icecap, his companion tripped and slid into Parrot knocking him over. Parrot continued sliding down for nearly a quarter of a mile before miraculously coming to a stop just a few feet before the edge of the glacier.

Six days later at the advice of Stepan Khojiants, the village chief of Agori, who also joined Parrot, the ascent was attempted from the northwest side. They managed to reach an elevation of 16,028 feet. The summit was visible from this altitude, but the hour was late.

Though it was late in the season, a stretch of favorable weather encouraged Parrot to make one last attempt. This time he resolved to do things right and to plan using the experience acquired from the previous two attempts. Employing villagers from Agori, Russian soldiers, horses and oxen, they attacked the mountain from the west as in the second attempt. When the terrain became too steep and tough for the pack animals, they were unloaded and sent back. The load was distributed among the party and they continued up the rocky slope. The team made their way as high as the lower limit of the snow cover. Parrot now understood that he must camp overnight as close as possible to the limits of perpetual snow. Here at an elevation of 13,800 feet above sea level they camped for the night. A fire was soon started and Parrot made his favorite onion soup, which he considered warming and reviving in such circumstances. The Armenians were fasting in observance of a church holiday. But all did share the brandy Parrot portioned out to the members of the party.

At the first crack of dawn they set off upward and crossed over the last rocky tracts to reach the lower limit of perpetual snow. The surface was hard ice. Steps had to be cut even into the less steep slopes. They soon reached a steeper section and continued cutting steps and climbed upward. A number of minor peaks lay ahead. “Boldly onward,” Parrot recalls crying out. They were soon to feel the full force of the mountain wind. The highest pinnacle of Ararat was in sight. At last, at 3:15 p.m. on October 9 (September 27, old style Julian calendar), 1829 Dr. Friedrich Parrot and his companions stood atop Mount Ararat.

He described the summit in the following way, “I found myself on a gently vaulted, near cruciform surface of about two hundred paces in circuit, which at the margin sloped off precipitously on every side, but particularly towards the southeast and northeast. Formed of eternal ice, ... it was the austere, silvery head of Old Ararat.” About that final push, Abovian would write: “We had been mercilessly suffering such various difficulties, so when the pinnacle of the mountain appeared not far from us, each person, one after the other, climbing and descending, headed towards that direction not taking any notice, at that moment, of any difficulties and not considering their exhaustion, they were hurrying and hastening to see the spot desired by so many. It appeared as if we were winging up the slope to the sky, towards where the summit was. Our hopeless legs and wobbly knees had gathered momentum and were soaring upward, toward the astonishing aerie.”

Six men stood victoriously atop the true summit on that momentous day; Parrot, Khatchadur Abovian, two Russian soldiers, Alexei Zdorovenko and Matvei Chalpanov, and two Armenian Agori villagers, Hovannes Aivazian, and Murat Poghossian. Parrot was busy conducting experiments. Using a mercury barometer he measured the elevation at 17,210 feet (5,280 meters). This was the highest elevation climbed by man up to this date outside of Mount Licancabur in the Chilean Andes. With a small portion of wine they drank a toast to the patriarch Noah. Abovian picked up a large chunk of ice from the summit and carried it down with him. He saved it in a bottle considering the water holy.

On November 8 (Oct. 27, J.C.), Parrot and Abovian together with the Agori hunter Sahak’s brother Hago, acting as a guide climbed up Lesser Ararat.

It is regrettable, that both Parrot and Abovian had to face skepticism and disbelief of their achievement by some ignorant people and the Armenian Church of the time.

Khatchadur Abovian’s first ascent of Ararat and his subsequent achievements in mountaineering firmly establish him as the father of Armenian mountaineering.

In 1834 the Russian Kozma F. Spassky-Avtonomov, a teacher at a Tiflis religious seminary, was next to attempt the climb. It is said that he wanted to ascertain whether stars are visible from great heights during daylight hours. Being a scholar and interested in astronomy he was inspired by Jacques Balmat’s somewhat fanciful account of seeing the stars at daytime from Mont Blanc.

About catching the first glimpse of Ararat he wrote, “At the sight of the immense mass of snow the mountain is crowned with, from a distance of over one hundred versts, on a straight line, I imagined myself in my wish to climb to the top, as a mindless child wishing to seize the sun’s image in the water.”

Spassky-Avtonomov arrived at Agori on August 13 (Aug. 1, J.C.). There he met with Stepan Khojiants.

He soon picked up two locals to guide him, Hovannes Aivazian who had guided and served Parrot so well, and Heghdar Ghougasian, in addition to the elderly Haroutiun Mkerdich, a pack oxen driver. The village blacksmith fashioned metal four-point strap-on crampons of Spassky-Avtonomov’s design and also a metal tip for his pole. “My Lord! Is it indeed possible that I may reach the summit which, according to the opinion of the eloquent and learned Tournefort, was not trampled by anyone’s feet since Noah!” he thought.

The party leftAgori three days later at 3:30 a.m. They elected to follow the same western route that had led Parrot to success on his third attempt just five years earlier. At 3:00 p.m., the oxen and driver were turned back. Aivazian was able to guide them up to the spot of Parrot’s high camp, where the party settled for the night. By 6:00 a.m., after drinking tea, the trio resumed the climb. At the snowcap Spassky-Avtonomov strapped on his crampons, which to his surprise worked very well. They climbed up the steep snow slope when Aivazian shouted out cautioning about the gaping bottomless mouth of a crevasse he was ready to step into. Later Aivazian located the cross that Parrot had erected on the Agori side of the dome, marking the high point of his second attempt at 16,028 feet. Leaving the higher western pyramid to his right, Spassky-Avtonomov headed up toward the eastern peak, recognizing that it is the one visible from Agori, and which the Agori villagers consider the higher peak. Standing atop the peak he searched the cloudless sky for stars. None were visible, as they never are.

After breaking for lunch in the saddle between the two summit peaks they headed toward the main summit. Upon reaching the top of the higher western summit pyramid Aivazian shouted out and pointed that this was where the Colonel (Parrot) had stood. Spassky-Avtonomov brings this forward as yet one more proof of Parrot indeed successfully ascending the true summit, contrary to the suspicions raised by some people.

In October 1831, an official inquiry had been conducted where the two Russian soldiers corroborated Parrot’s account. Aivazian and Poghossian, however, were recorded as stating that, “We were not on the very summit… ,” which the skeptics accepted as proof of their disbelief. But Spassky-Avtonomov correctly opines that this controversy arises from the ambiguity of the translators, and the important fact that the Agori villagers and all observers from the north side of the mountain see the closer eastern summit to be the higher of the two, due to the trick played by the perspective on viewers from below. The difference between the heights is 50 feet (15 meters).

Spassky-Avtonomov, Aivazian, and Ghougasian stood atop the true summit on August 17 (Aug. 5, J.C.), 1834, and were the first and few to ascend both peaks. Most Western chroniclers, however, mistakenly report that he had only climbed up to the lower eastern summit.

All three would suffer heavily from snow blindness. Upon his return he had his son baptized with water brought from the top of Ararat.

Spassky-Avtonomov also mentions a Russian landscape painter he had talked with who had attempted to climb Ararat in 1833. Not having made any preparations, the artist took along with him only a walking stick and a chunk of bread. With no assistance from guides or porters he claimed to have nearly made it to the top, but was forced to turn back because of fatigue, the ensuing darkness, and the oncoming storm. It is believed that the said individual was the artist Vasilev, who was a teacher at the Nersessian School in Tiflis at the time.

One year later in 1835, Karl Berens, an official in the service of the Russian Emperor with a 7th grade civil service rank, on his way from Persia decided to fulfill his lifetime dream to climb Ararat. He also established base camp in Agori where he awaited favorable weather. Berens was to be the last climber to visit Agori before the devastating 1840 earthquake. On his first attempt Berens reached up to the snow line climbing from the northeast slope. Here he came across a five-foot-long pole with Russian inscription on it. Was this the pole left there by Parrot on his first attempt? Berens was able to reach the top of the dome from where the peaks were visible, but was forced to turn back. On his descent he suffered from snow blindness and high fever, just as Spassky-Avtonomov had before him.

Some three weeks later on September 2 (Aug. 20, J.C.), Berens left Agori again for his second attempt to the top. Accompanied by four guides from the village Berens headed up the mountain following the same general route of his initial attempt. They overnighted just below the snow line. Early next morning they resumed the climb and reached the snowcap where Berens protected his eyes with a fine black woolen net. The steps that he had carved out in the ice on the previous attempt were covered with fresh snow. The wind picked up soon and the sun disappeared, and they also became submerged in clouds. Crevasses from one to three feet wide appeared ahead. Berens lost contact with his companions for a while. Reunited, they climbed together and found the cross that Parrot had erected at the high point of his second attempt. The cross was buried in snow with only some seven inches of its tip visible. They also found the lead plate with Parrot’s name and year of ascent nearby. Parrot had reached this spot climbing up from the western side and recorded the elevation at 16,028 feet. Berens took a piece of the cross as a souvenir. The time was late and his guides refused to go any farther. Berens marked four hundred paces toward the summit and planted his own cross and flag there. A bottle of wine passed between them to toast their achievement.

A few weeks later two Russians named Stremooukhov and Zamelenko arrived in Armenia with the intention of climbing Ararat. There is no information as to how successful they may have been.

Herrmann von Abich was a professor of mineralogy at the same University of Dorpat as professor Parrot. He ended up specializing in the geology of the Caucasus. Professor Abich’s goal was to study the geological structure of Mount Ararat, to survey and chart an optimum route up the mountain, and to dispel all doubts that Parrot may not have reached the top. Abich made three unsuccessful attempts to climb Ararat in 1844. During this time he was accompanied by Khatchadur Abovian but each attempt was aborted by violent storms just short of the summit. They did, however, climb Lesser Ararat and spend the night on its summit.

Finally the following year, Abich set up base camp not far from Sardarbulakh at an elevation of about 8,800 feet, the highest point reached by horse. From there his party climbed up and pitched camp at an elevation of 14,128 feet. Early the next morning, they left all excess gear with the three members of the party remaining behind. Climbing to an elevation of 15,480 feet, Abich and his group came across the wooden cross, erected by Abich’s servant Karl Zenka at the highest point that they had reached on their unsuccessful first attempt the previous year. That same cross would be found by the Englishmen Robert Stuart, and Walter Thursby in 1856, leading them to speculate that Abich may never have reached the summit.

Continuing the climb, Abich and his companions approached a massive snow wall, which they successfully circumvented and then climbed atop a ridge leading to a low angle snow slope, which soon led them to the top of the eastern summit. The time was noon August 22 (Aug. 10, J.C.), 1845. Employing a mercury barometer, Abich calculated the elevation at 16,953 feet (5167 meters). Summitting with Abich were his servant Karl Zenka, translator and guide Peter I. Sharoyan a student of Abovian’s, two local Armenian villagers Hounan Martirosian and Simon Sarkisian, a survivor of the 1840 Agori avalanche, from the now New Agori, and also four Russian Cossacks.

In 1846, on September 30 the Englishman Henry Danby Seymour climbed Ararat with two Armenians guides. He would later remark that it was just to “gratify a tourist’s whim.” About the climb he wrote, “My companions were two Armenians and a Cossack officer. I remember that we slept in a woody dell before commencing the ascent in charge of the Cossack guard. We could obtain no porters, and one of the Armenians served as guide. We had to carry all we wanted for our ascent ourselves. I remember I had chickens, &c., fastened round my waist. At the last moment the Armenian who served as guide refused to come because he had no boots. I had to give him my own boots and wear some Persian slippers. The time we could stay on the summit was very short, as the clouds began to gather round us. We reached the plateau on the top and descended, I remember, by a different hollow of the mountain to that by which we had ascended, coming down a tremendous snowslide.”

Seymour had every reason to be nonchalant about the climb, after all his guides were the experienced Khatchadur Abovian, and Simon Sarkisian who had successfully guided Abich the previous year.

In 1850, Colonel Iosif I. Khodzko, a Russian Army topographer organized a massive expedition up Ararat. The goal was to conduct precision topographical triangulation and meteorological measurements. The expedition was made up of a total of 68 persons including: Khodzko, N. Khanykoff, P. Uslar, J. Alexandroff, A. Moritz, and Peter I. Sharoyan; in addition to two Armenian guides from New Agori, Simon Sarkisian, and Hounan Avakian; together with 60 Russian soldiers.

On July 31 (July 19, J.C.), the expedition arrived together from Aralykh at Sardarbulakh to spend the next 10 days making the final preparations for the ascent. Six days later Private Chougounkov was dispatched, in advance of the main group, with two other soldiers to raise a birch stake atop the summit of Ararat. Later on August 22 (Aug. 10, J.C.) the expedition moved up to an area at an elevation of 10,850 feet where they established base camp and set up a meteorological station.

With Sarkisian and Avakian in the van to guide them, on August 25 (Aug. 13, J.C.) the expedition made its way up the eastern slope of the mountain with pack animals hauling the heavy gear and scientific instruments. They followed along the route taken by Abich in 1845. Upon reaching their limit, the pack animals were turned back and the loads transferred to wooden sleds each pulled by six soldiers. Camp was set up at 14,710 feet that evening. The weather was deteriorating, but they resumed the ascent the next morning. They passed the cross left by Abich’s group and stopped for the day at 16,175 feet. The following day Khodzko climbed to 16,520 feet, where they were to spend three days hunkered down waiting out the violent snowstorm raging around them. Finally on August 18 (Aug. 6, J.C.) the storm subsided and by 9:00 a.m. the expedition reached the eastern summit topped with the stake planted by Chougounkov some days earlier. An hour later Khodzko was standing atop the higher eastern summit pyramid where a cross, carried by Sarkisian was soon erected.

Only Khodzko and Sharoyan remained on the summit for the full five days, living in a dugout snow cave lined with carpets. The other expedition members descended to the meteorological camp and returned to the summit as needed. Now blessed with clear weather Khodzko lost no time in conducting his scientific observations and measurements. Khodzko’s precision geodesic measurements put the highest point of Ararat at 16,915 feet (5,156 meters) above sea level. This value remained valid and on all maps for the next century and half! On the snowcap he reported spotting two aurochs during his stay. Khodzko descended to the meteorological camp on August 24 (Aug. 12, J.C.).

Another group of five Englishmen, Major Robert Stuart, Major Alick J. Fraser, Walter Thursby, James Theobold, and John Evans attempted the ascent of Ararat from Bayazit in 1856. This was perhaps the first attempt from the south. They reached 8,000 feet above sea level on horseback where they made camp. Early the next morning at 3:00 on August 12, all except Thursby left camp to begin the climb. Three of the four started climbing up the southern side. Fraser took off in a southeastern direction. Unable to continue the climb Stuart returned to camp. Theobold was subsequently to summit successfully at 1:45 p.m., with Evans at 2:50 p.m., and Fraser at about 3:30 p.m.

Stuart and Thursby left camp the following afternoon of August 13, and climbed to about 14,000 feet where they set up camp for the night. The next day on their way up to the summit they stumbled upon some relics left by a previous expedition. “About 1,200 feet from the summit, we came upon an oak cross that had been fixed there in the rock by Professor Abich in the year 1845; it was in perfect preservation, and the inscription, in Russian characters was still legible.” Stuart wrote. They both eventually reached the summit before 9:00 a.m. “Here I stuck to the hilt in the snow a kama, or short double-edged sword, which we found at the foot of Abich’s cross.” Stuart speculates, “Professor Abich made several attempts, but failed in all, as is proved by the position of the cross,...”

Not being familiar with the history of the mountain, Stuart mistakenly believed that they were the first to ascend Ararat.

Traveling on his way through Armenia in 1868, Douglas Freshfield, one of the great English mountain explorers, wrote in his book Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan, “Ararat burst suddenly into view—a huge but gracefully-shaped mass,…. It stands perfectly isolated from all the other ranges, with the still more perfect cone of Little Ararat at its side. From a distance and a height well calculated to permit the eye to take in its true proportions, we agreed that no single mountain we knew presented such magnificent and impressive appearance as the Armenian giant.” Also, “(I)n the distance stood Ararat, as usual wrapped in his afternoon cloud, and the two peaks of Aragats relieved against a bright-blue sky. It was a picture one longed to see transferred to canvas, by some painter equal to the occasion.” Freshfield and his companions’ attempt at climbing Ararat was not successful, only one from his party reached as high as about 16,000 feet. However, later that summer they claimed first ascents of Mount Kazbek 16,356 (4,985 meters), and of the lower eastern summit of Elbrus 18,356 feet (5,595 meters) in the Caucasus Range.

In the summer of 1876, the English traveler, historian, politician, and diplomat James Bryce traveled through the region with his friend Aeneas Mackay. In the book titled Transcaucasia and Ararat, Bryce confesses that the highlight of his trip was the ascent of Mount Ararat.

In Tiflis he met with General Khodzko. “From him and his secretary Mr. Sharoyan, I received a valuable suggestion for the climb, which we were thinking of trying, vis. to keep to the rocks rather than trust the snow, and many injunctions on no account to ascend alone. Whatever chance of success you have depends on your sleeping very high up, close to the snows, and starting before dawn to try the main peak,” advised Sharoyan who had ascended Ararat with both Khodzko and Abich.

Bryce took off from Sardarbulakh at 7,700 feet above sea level with his team of Russian soldiers and Kurds at 1:00 a.m. By 10:30 a.m., at an elevation of about 13,600 feet Bryce was left all alone, the last soldier had turned back. The effects of thin air were becoming noticeable. The summit was covered in clouds. To find his way back he began building cairns with stones.

After mounting a series of treacherous slopes he reached the lower edge of the snowcap. With low visibility before him, he began marking his progress by trailing his ice axe behind him. He climbed the peak ahead of him. However, a powerful gust of wind cleared his view to spot another peak a quarter of a mile away. He quickly realized it to be the true western summit, so he ran down the snow valley and climbed up the second peak at 2:45 p.m. on September 12.

A couple of days later in Etchmiadzin, at a meeting with the Catholicos, the interpreter turned to him and stated; “This Englishman says he ascended to the top of Ararat.” “No,” replied the Catholicos, “that cannot be. No one has ever been there. It is impossible.”

Bryce has one of the best descriptions of Ararat. He writes, “The noble thing about Ararat is not its parts but the whole. I know nothing so sublime as the general aspect of this huge yet graceful mass seen from the surrounding plains; no view fills the beholder with a profounder sense of grandeur and space than that which is unfolded when, on climbing its lofty side, he sees the farfetching slopes beneath, and the boundless waste of mountains beyond spread out under his eye. The very simplicity, or even monotony, of both form and colour increases its majesty. …There can be few other places in the world where so lofty a peak soars so suddenly from the plain so low,… and consequently few so grand.”

In 1878, another Englishman George Percival Baker arrived at the Russian army post of Aralik with his father George, and two friends, in addition to a local guide named Boghos. Here the group met up with Simon Sarkisian who had also successfully guided Abich’s, Seymour’s, and Khodzko’s expeditions many years ago. The following day they traveled to Sardarbulakh with an escort of 20 Cossacks and set up base camp. The next morning, with four Cossacks for protection, they headed toward the southeastern slope where they dismounted at about 8,500 feet and began climbing up the mountain.

Reaching an elevation of about 12,000 feet they found a sheltered

[phantom22]

Arpa,

 

Where do you find the time to read these long treaties and write your lengthy posts? Are you a retiree? Are you being kept by a wealthy woman? Are you independently wealthy? Perhaps, I am wrong and you are not a man but a woman who is only occupied with household management of service helpers.

 

Just curious Arpa jan!

 

 

I know. I know.

This article will be remanded to the trashcan of HyeForum as it is not written by a Turk and it is not loaded with the all time catchy G-word.

I am glad I was forced to search and find the below site and article.

Note the highlights by me about Agori.

Did I miss any?

We call it Masis, others may call it R R T or Agri, ignorant of the fact that “agri” is no more then a corrupted/turkified version of AGORI. Speaking of which. In the Armenian language “agori/aghouri” simply means “vine” as in “grape vine”, no thanks to that “drunken idiot” Noah who is fabled to have planted the first grape vine and gotten drunk by its fermented fruit.

I have a copy of Parseghian’s ARARAT BECKONS mentioned below, where one can see , as if the light of day, the remnants of the town of Agori , If in fact, after all this exposure is still around with all the Khachkars/grave markers with Armenian scripts strewn around!

I know! it is long and arduous , but do please read the following article.

I have highlighted as need be , yet be sure to spot where I have failed, like references to Abovian, Parrot et al.. And see how many times I may have missed reference to AGORI.

Agori Please!

Akorri, if you must!

R R T???

Please bear with me. I know it is a long read, but may be worth every word.

 

http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/fea12240501.htm

climbing ararat: then and now

By Philip K. Ketchian

 

Day One: Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Dogubayazit. I was sitting on pins and needles, on a bench in front of the Isfahan Hotel in Dogubayazit, a drab and sweltering border town of squat cinderblock buildings, whose main industry, as rumor has it, is smuggling, and possessing all the charm of a New Year’s Day hangover. Since early sunrise we had been all packed and ready to go, a last minute glitch had, however, left us grounded for an indefinite period. Elsa and I had flown from Boston and arrived in Van via Istanbul the previous day. From Van we were picked up by the Anatolian Adventures van and driven the 100-mile distance to Dogubayazit. The Isfahan had been known as the Ararat Hotel in the past and is popular amongst climbers; its lobby has been likened to Rick’s Bar in the film Casablanca by some old-time “Ark hunters.”

We were waiting for the local military district commander’s signature to the final of the half dozen permits that would clear the way for us to climb the mythical mountain. Sinan, our Turkish guide, was assuring us that it was just a matter of time. It didn’t help to know that I was the problem, or more precisely, my Armenian name was. A senior army general had popped up from headquarters for a surprise inspection, so the otherwise willing local commander had astutely hidden away our passports and permit applications, not wishing to draw undue attention to my name. Our backpacks and duffel bags had been loaded on our van some time ago. The grating sound of the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer filled the air once again.

Waiting on tenterhooks, I was doing my best not to reveal my high state of anxiety. What was I doing here anyhow? How did I get myself in this position? I looked around to note that all my teammates, including Elsa, have had experience climbing mountains significantly higher than this. This was to be my most ambitious climb. As a matter of fact the highest peak that I had climbed to date was a full 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) lower than this one. Even Camp 2, which we would reach on the third day of the expedition, is higher. It was exciting to think that I would be attempting to nod off to sleep at an elevation somewhat higher than I had ever been!

Our team was composed of four climbers: my wife Elsa, two fine English gentlemen—Alan Williams, who had worked in the information technology business and Cliff Jackson, a Baptist minister—and myself. We were most fortunate to have three guides assigned to us; Karl Farkas from KE Adventure Travel in Britain, Sinan Halic, president of Anatolian Adventures based in Istanbul, and Apo Kara, our second local guide. We were also lucky to have Jamal, a climber himself, to serve as the expedition’s cook and quartermaster.

It did nothing to my foreboding when Sinan had amicably tried to assure me that he would personally see that I would get up his mountain. “Our mountain,” I corrected him diplomatically, determined as ever before to summit atop “my mountain,” Mount Ararat. But what if after coming so close I alone was denied this final permit? ... I knew that I must think positive and shake off such defeatist thoughts.

It had all begun in April 2002, when I received a brochure from KE Adventure Travel’s American office in Colorado. KE (for Karakoram Experiences) is a British company that had pioneered some of the first expeditions in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan. The brochure was full of beautiful photos of all the exotic expeditions that they were organizing worldwide. Leafing through its pages my eyes suddenly caught sight of something so familiar to me, Mount Ararat! It stated that the Turkish government had recently lifted its restrictions and once again opened the mountain to climbers, and so KE was organizing their first ever expedition to Mount Ararat the following year in July 2003.

My heart was pounding and I broke out in a sweat. I read and re-read the write-up. I felt it to be a personal invitation especially addressed to me. I recognized this to be my chance. I couldn’t wait to show it to Elsa. What would her reaction be? Later that day, without comment, I brought it to her attention. Her eyes brightened, and her smile widened. She sprang up raising her hands as she exclaimed, “We’re doing this together.” The die was cast; there would be no turning back now.

The following day I called KE Adventure Travel in Colorado and signed us up for the trip. They were interested in our past mountaineering experience, thus the process was set in motion. A list of necessary clothing and equipment was to follow. I recalled a warning Henry David Thoreau issued in the first chapter of Walden, “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” I didn’t feel it applied to us because we had almost everything, excluding crampons and ice axes, which we immediately set out to purchase. I pulled out of storage the beautiful brand-new Scarpa heavy mountain boots, waiting for such an occasion. This was just one of a half-dozen different boots I had stocked up on when the Boston distributor went out of business a few years ago. They would require some breaking in. Next I splurged on a pair of photochromatic glacier glasses with variable light transmission adjusting to the intensity of the ambient light, with prescription lenses correcting my astigmatism, and with progressive gradient bifocals. The one-year-plus lead-time would provide ample time to prepare us physically and psychologically for the rigors that lay ahead.

Over the past 12 years Elsa and I have had the pleasure of hiking extensively in the mountains of the Northeast United States, in addition to the mountains in Spain, France, Switzerland, Japan, and Armenia, including Mount Aragats and Mount Azhdahak. We have also deliberately done some climbs in adverse weather conditions in order to gain the necessary experience. This schooled us in selecting the proper foul weather clothing and equipment, and how to use them.

Meanwhile, I searched the available literature for information on the mountain, maps and photos, and firsthand accounts of both successful and unsuccessful attempts. To my disappointment, no good detailed maps suitable for climbing were to be found, and neither KE nor Anatolian Adventures ever supplied us with one. Imagine climbing in this day and age without a proper topographical trail map. Luckily, I had had the foresight over a decade ago to order one (1:200,000 scale) from a publisher in England, which was now out of print and unavailable.

KE sent us its Visitor to Mount Ararat Guide with tips on staying healthy, immunization shots, clothing, footwear, gear, food and drink, and also advice on purchasing mandatory emergency medical and evacuation insurance, in addition to trip cancellation insurance. A list describing the various symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness and its prevention followed.

The Turkish government maintains tight control over the mountain. Ararat had been off limits to climbers until it was reopened in 2002. Individuals wishing to climb the mountain are subjected to a background security check requiring a special-purpose climbing visa, and the issuance of permits from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, the Ministry of Tourism, the governor of the province, and the commander of the local military police. These procedures can take up to three months. Climbers from Armenia are usually flatly refused. Many Armenians from the diaspora are also often refused. That is why I chose to sign up with a non-Armenian group.

At last, by 11:00, to the relief of all, our final permit was signed and, with our gear packed and ready, we boarded the van. Our driver started up the engine and headed north crossing the two busy downtown commercial streets full of men seated at outdoor cafes drinking tea and coffee, and playing cards or backgammon under a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke. The driver negotiated his way between teenage boys pushing carts full of vegetables and fruits, but mostly watermelons. It was high season for watermelons and they were everywhere. I was made aware of that last night when the trucks loaded to their tops rumbled into the wholesale food market across the street from our hotel window in the early hours after midnight.

The van made a sharp right hand turn on to the highway, which also marks the northern end of the town and traverses the alluvial plain leading east to Iran. We soon approached the military checkpoint, where Sinan alighted and walked over to and entered the guard booth to present our passports and permits. A Soviet-designed armored combat vehicle was parked conspicuously on the shoulder of the road, ready to intercept any trespasser, its cannon menacingly trained toward the road. The main army base, with American M-60 battle tanks forming its core, was situated nearby. The soldiers peeked into our van but all was well, and we were allowed to proceed on our way. From here one had an unobstructed view of Mount Ararat, its towering peak some 15 miles away as the crow flies (that is if the local birds do fly straight) gleaming in the noon sun, its features, however, fading with the thickening of the summer haze. As beautiful and majestic as the mountain is from the south, there is no question in my mind that Ararat reveals its best side to the north—toward Yerevan.

Soon the van turned left off the highway onto a dirt road heading toward Eli, our starting off point. The desiccated landscape unfolding ahead of us, devoid of trees, was baking under the sun’s merciless rays. No sign of man or animal was visible, only our van speeding up the foothills, kicking up clouds of dust in its wake, and the mounting thrill of high adventure. We reached Eli, which serves as a summer settlement for nomadic Kurds grazing their cattle on the slopes of the mountain. It consists of a few dozen tents and one stone structure.

Our van stopped at what could be construed as the village square. The shepherds were ready and waiting to haul our gear up to Camp 1. The packhorses and donkeys were there too. After unloading the van the Kurds loaded up the horses and donkeys. Lacking saddlebags, they haphazardly secured our duffel bags with pieces of frayed ropes tied together. Then the van turned around and headed back to Dogubayazit.

I took out my GPS unit (Global Positioning System) to measure the elevation. It read precisely 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) above sea level. With this reading I calibrated my barometer/altimeter. We headed toward the trailhead. The summit was obscured from this vantage point by a massive lava hillock to our north. Most climbing groups begin their trek from a spot 660 feet (200 meters) higher in elevation.

Shouldering our light backpacks and carrying only water, snacks, and foul weather gear, we headed west along a neglected, long-abandoned dirt road that soon rounded the lava hillock and snaked northward. From here on our trek would follow in a general NNE direction. The summit some six miles away on a straight line and 10,292 vertical feet (3,137 meters), or nearly two vertical miles above us, playing hide and seek among the clouds, loomed as an impregnable fortress. In the Iliad, Homer describes Mount Olympus, the divine abode of the gods of ancient Greece, as tall and shear and protected by clouds and darkness enshrouding the sacred summit, which form the “utmost gates” guarded by the Horae, who open and close the gates only for the immortals, barring passage to ordinary mortals. Ararat is said by the locals to be guarded by the Zone of Spiders, the Zone of Bears, and the Zone of Snakes.

From here on any climber could only rely upon himself. I took a long swig from my water bottle and trudged on.

Mountains have always held a mystique for humans. They have been objects of fear, reverence, and inspiration. We are drawn to mountains for many reasons—economic, scientific, aesthetic, and also adventure. Moreover, they are one of the last patches of wilderness one has to escape from the pressures of modern life.

Barren mountaintops are like islands in the sky, surrounded by a sea of vegetation. John Ruskin, the 19th century English writer and critic, once wrote, “Mountains seem to have been built for the human race as at once their schools and their cathedrals.”

Mountains are often described as majestic and mighty. In the presence of high and unapproachable peaks one tends to feel small and insignificant. The fascination of mountains casts a spell on people, drawing them toward the lofty summits with a veiled promise of adventure and spiritual fulfillment.

Mount Ararat occupies a special place in world civilization, largely due to its mention in the Book of Genesis. “And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. And the Ark rested in the seventh month, and on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.” Because of the legend of Noah’s Ark, Mount Ararat has become one of the most well known mountains in the world. According to some legends, the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in the vicinity of the mountain.

Mount Ararat, also known as Masis in Armenian, is the most important symbol of our national identity, and of our ancient homeland. Sometimes Masis is used for the taller peak, and Sis for Lesser Ararat. The name Ararat has its origin in the Bible as “r_r_t” without the vowels. Armenians experience the same spiritual relationship vis-à-vis Ararat, as the Japanese with Mount Fuji, the Hawaiians with Mauna Kea, and the ancient Greeks with Mount Olympus. What traveler has not looked up in awe at its majestic form and marveled at its sublime beauty?

Mother Nature’s bestowal of abundant sunlight together with the sparseness of vegetation paint Ararat in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of visual impressions etched in one’s consciousness. Ararat plays an important role in the art, the literature, and especially the poetry of Armenia. And what, after all, would Armenian artists have done without Ararat? Even Henry Thoreau wrote about that, “antique, brownish-gray, Ararat color.”

The glistening peak looms so real and so unattainable, so near and yet so far away.

Ararat is a state of mind...

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped volcano located some 20 miles south of the border of the modern Republic of Armenia. The peak soars up to an elevation of 16,854 feet (5,137 meters) above sea level, according to the most recent measurements made with precision instruments from satellites in space. This is slightly lower than the previously published height of 16,946 feet (5,165 meters). As a rule, the phrase “Mount Ararat” refers to the higher peak. The smaller cone, Lesser Ararat 12,782 feet (3,895 meters) rises southeast of the main peak. This too has been downgraded from 12,878 feet (3,925 meters). The two peaks are linked together by a saddle about 7,900 feet high. The separation between the two summits is approximately seven miles. The mountain is entirely located in present-day Turkey. It abuts the borders of Armenia, Nakhichevan, and Iran.

Ararat is an extinct stratovolcano that has not erupted in historic times. It was built up gradually in alternating layers of molten lava flows and the buildup of erupted volcanic ash, cinders, blocks, and bombs. Ararat has no visible crater. It was violently shaken by a powerful earthquake in 1840. Tragically, the resulting avalanche of rock, snow, and ice buried the Armenian village of Agori and the Saint Jacob Monastery and Chapel on its northern slope.

The two Ararats straddle the ancient caravan routes, standing proudly alone and towering towards the heavens from the sun-baked Armenian Plateau. Ararat, undisputedly, presents its best side toward Armenia to the north, rising some 14,100 vertical feet from the Arax River. Few mountains anywhere in the world provide such a spectacular view.

In 1254 William of Rubruk, a Franciscan monk returning from Karakoram passed by Ararat. He related the legend of the Armenian monk who, after a number of unsuccessful attempts at climbing the mountain to see the Ark, was visited by an angel who admonished him for his efforts, but out of kindness presented him with a piece of the wood of the Ark. His name was Jacob (Hagop), who was said to be a contemporary and a relative of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, and a monastery was built at that spot on the northern slope at the base of the Agori Gorge. The wood fragment is said to be at the present held in Etchmiadzin.

The Venetian traveler Marco Polo passed through Armenia on his way to China in 1271. About Ararat he wrote: “In the central part of Armenia stands an exceedingly large and high mountain, upon which, it is said, the Ark of Noah rested, and for this reason it is termed the Mountain of the Ark. The circuit of its base cannot be compassed in less than two days. The ascent is impracticable on account of the snow towards the summit, which never melts, but goes on increasing by each successive fall.”

The Dutch traveler Jan Struys passed through the region in June 1670. In the somewhat fanciful account of his experiences published in his book The Perilous and Most Unhappy Voyages, Struys mentions being captured by Tartars to be sold as a slave in Persia. On the way they passed by Ararat. “Mount Ararat is seated just in the parting of Armenia and Medea,” he writes. “It is much higher than either Caucasus, or the famous Taurus, or any other Mountain in all Medea, Armenia or Persia, so far as one can view. It is blew, and dark-coloured Rock.”

He was asked by his captors to visit an ailing hermit on Ararat, to cure him. In his journey up the mountain he describes passing through three sorts of clouds. “The first were thick, misty and dark. The second were cold and like snow, although it was perfect summer in the Valleys, and so warm that the Grapes were very early ripe. The third sort were so cold, that we could hardly endure any longer, and thought verily that we should have grown stiff, and not able to proceed on our Journey. But having now travailed 4 days, we found the Air very temperate and tolerable. We arrived at the Hermits house, which was hewen out of Rock, ...” The hermit presented Struys with a wood fragment from the Ark, and a stone upon which the Ark had rested.

In 1701, the famous French botanist, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort traveled to the Ararat region to study its plant life. In his book titled, A Voyage into the Levant, Tournefort writes: “I have never seen such a more beautiful Country than the neighborhood of the Three-Churches (Etchmiadzin), I am strongly persuaded that Adam and Eve were created there.” “All the Armenians kiss the Earth as soon as they see Ararat, and repeat certain Prayers, after having made the Sign of the Cross,” he observed.

He began climbing up Ararat, “... but not without difficulty: We were forced to climb up loose sands,” he wrote. He found little water on the mountain. Buried up to his ankles in loose sand, slipping and sliding he reached a large patch of snow, but fatigue and queasiness forced him to turn back. Tournefort had hoped to discover some antediluvian plants and flowers on Ararat. “M. Struys would have done us a particular Favour, if he had told us where the Anchorites, he mentions resided;... .” he lamented. It was, perhaps, sour grapes that led him to write that, “This Mountain, ... is one of the most sad and disagreeable Sights upon Earth.”

On the other hand, the British envoy James Morier wrote in his book, A Second Journey Through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor ... that in 1810, “...we had a most splendid view of Mount Ararat. Nothing can be more beautiful than its shape, more awful than its height. It is perfect in all its parts, no hard rugged feature, no unnatural prominences, everything is in harmony, and all combines to render it one of the sublimest objects in nature.”

In 1817, Robert Ker Porter wrote about his encounter with Ararat in his book Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia. “It was not until we had arrived upon the flat plain, that I beheld Ararat in all its amplitude of grandeur. From the spot on which I stood, it appeared as if the hugest mountains of the world, had been piled upon each other to form this sublime immensity of earth, and rock, and snow. The icy peaks of its double head rose majestically into the clear and cloudless heavens; the sun blazed bright upon them; and the reflection sent forth a dazzling radiance, equal to other suns.”

Another British envoy Augustus Mounsey whose carriage was stuck in the middle of a river and awaiting assistance was to write of his travels in A Journey Through The Caucasus and the Interior of Persia, in 1872, that “As we were eating our last morsel of pate-de-foie-gras, out came the sun, and Ararats conical summit appeared sharply cut on the clear background, towering aloft the great mystic mountain stood before me in all its symmetrical beauty. The two cones softened, to my eye, its huge masculine grandeur, and gave it the soft charm of feminine beauty: for the lesser one nestles in the bosom of the greater, like a beautiful flower in the breast of a fair lady.”

After waiting a week without luck for the haze to lift, Tsar Nicholas I left saying, “Too bad for Ararat. It will not have seen the Tsar.”

We departed Eli at about 12:45 p.m., followed by the half-dozen packhorses and donkeys. We had been surrounded by curious Kurdish children, who asked for sunscreen, which appeared to hold a special cachet for them, by rubbing their cheeks with their fingers. Our expedition formed an amorphous group of trekkers and pack animals together with their drivers. After we rounded the lava hillock the summit came back into sight, fast-moving clouds were crashing into its upper slopes blotting out the peak, only to clear up soon again. The noontime sun was mercilessly scorching everything in sight. Ararat is totally void of trees. Only an unusual copse of stunted birch trees has existed on the northern slope of Lesser Ararat, at an elevation of approximately 7,750 feet (2,400 meters). I don’t know in what form it has survived today. Passing by the area in the fall of 1996, I was stunned by the glowing orange-red ribbon from a massive conflagration observable in the pitch darkness of midnight in the general direction from where that patch of woods should be, from just across from the border on the Armenian side of the Arax River. It was a spectacular but sad sight; my companion the then Minister of the Environment of Armenia speculated that it had been set ablaze to flush out the Kurdish rebels.

The air was dry, but the temperature was up in the high eighties, Fahrenheit. We stuck to the dirt track for a while, but it continued to deteriorate the higher we went. This road had been built in the 1980s, and we were told that it reached up to Camp 1. But the years of neglect had taken its toll, and the word was that the local Kurds had always viewed it as a sinister plot to rob them of the income they earned hauling the gear of climbers up the mountain. So the harsh elements of the mountain and the alleged covert actions of the locals have contributed to the disappearance of the track in most places. The slope was still very gentle here. We passed by the spot from where in the past the climbers would begin their trek. I was glad to have started off that much lower—there being so much more of “my mountain” to savor. The road eventually bore left and soon totally disappeared, the freshets from the spring snowmelts had washed it away. Only a deep gully ran where the road had once been.

By now the pack animals were opening up the distance between us. They would reach Camp 1 well before us. The clouds over the summit rolled in and out, but we remained constantly exposed to the scorching rays of the sun overhead. This may be one of the disadvantages of the southern route.

From sunrise in the east to sunset in the west it is relentlessly radiating down on you. There is no shade to be found, no escape. James Bryce had also suffered from the sun in 1876, when traversing the lower northern slopes of the mountain en route to camp at Sardarbulakh. His comments on the situation came to mind quite appropriately; “(T)he management… of the bridle and a big white umbrella, required some dexterity. An umbrella and a horse do seem rather incompatible, not only with one another, but with a mountain ascent; but we would willingly have looked even more ridiculous for the sake of some protection against the fiery shower of beams that descended from the cloudless sky.”

The southern route, however, is the only one open at this time. It is well served from Dogubayazit, and it is perhaps, the safest. The route stays clear of the paths of falling rocks, and the steepest and slipperiest slopes. It is also the easiest for the army to monitor. Sinan related how on a previous climb a member of the team had perhaps walked away too far from his tent for some privacy in the middle of the night. The soldiers using night vision devices had detected it and radioed Sinan to call him back.

We were trekking through rock-strewn alpine meadows where the semi-nomadic Kurds bring their flocks of sheep and goats to graze in the summer. Slowly we approached a yayla, one of the temporary summer encampments, where they live with their families. We skirted it to our left so as not to get distracted and to stay clear of the dogs. The little girls came running over to us holding up pretty hand-knitted woolen socks to sell and, of course, motioning for sunscreen. At this rate we could be out of it soon. The gentle slope of our track was deceptive, for we would be gaining some 4,350 vertical feet (1,325 meters) in elevation on this first day.

The higher we climbed the rockier the terrain became. Underfoot was a trail surface consisting of packed volcanic dust and ash, liberally peppered with scree and scoria. The density of the strewn scree increased with the elevation with talus gradually mixing up with the scree. The scree and talus are ankle-twisters lodged unstably on the surface of volcanic dust and ash. One disregards this only at one’s own peril. Huge igneous rocks and boulders are scattered about. Many of them are lava blocks and lava bombs that have been violently ejected out of the crater during an eruption sometime back in prehistoric times. The blocks have irregular sharp shapes, as they were shot out as solid fragments of lava. The bombs have smoother aerodynamic surfaces; they were shot out of the volcano while still molten magma, solidifying and taking shape while falling through the air, or after landing.

Eventually, Elsa, Apo, and I formed a loose group hiking detached from the rest. We, and especially Elsa were taking note of the wildflowers along the route, many quite similar to those we have seen on Aragats and Azhdahak in Armenia. As a matter of fact, the three mountains form a triangle with Yerevan, the Armenian capital, at its center.

We continued on, the slope was becoming only marginally steeper. It had little resemblance to a mountain trail, if not for the summit in the distance above. At this elevation and vantage point the mountain appeared foreshortened and made up of three different parts; the lower flatter green section that we were presently traversing and that continued up to Camp 1; the rocky, “antique, brownish-gray Ararat color” section which resembled a cake in the form of a truncated cone dropped atop the lower green layer; and the upper dome crowned with a generous dollop of vanilla ice cream with snow-white fingers streaking down the sides. It beckoned and teased us, now hiding coyly behind a veil of clouds, and then boldly revealing itself in all its beauty.

Some three-quarters of the way en route up to Camp 1 we crossed paths with the returning horses that had unloaded our gear up there. We took some breaks to rest and consume our snacks and water. We were enjoying the trek and the beauty that surrounded us. The weather was hot, but otherwise holding steady.

By the time we marched into Camp 1, our tents had been pitched and were ready. It was about 6:30 p.m. The Trango 3000 tent was not very roomy for the two of us, but was quite sturdy. We collected the duffel bags with all our gear packed in them and brought them into our tent. The expedition had also supplied us with a very functional sleeping pad for our sleeping bags. The tent would be our home for the next four nights. Alan and Cliff were doubled up together in a similar tent nearby. Jamal had set up the camp stove and was busy making preparations for our dinner.

This was Camp 1, also known as Green Camp, no doubt, because the immediate area of the encampment was unusually green. Its elevation I measured to be 10,910 feet (3,325 meters) above sea level. It is a large and reasonably level area able to accommodate a few expeditions at a time. A little brook rippled on the western boundary of the camp; it would serve as the source of our water. The water was cool but murky, due to the volcanic dust and ash suspended in it. Pack animals and sheep lingered nearby upstream. The locals had no respect for sanitation.

Everyone was in high spirits. Shuffling about we bunched together and began chatting, commenting on the day’s hike and periodically sneaking glances in the direction of the summit above. A large group of mostly Dutch climbers were camped nearby. Cliff came back to us with the news that all had successfully summitted this afternoon, even though the peak was in the clouds. The news raised our hopes, but didn’t make it any easier for us.

Our soup was ready to be served so we gathered around the tarp spread on the ground. It was delicious; however, with only one camp stove it took a while before Jamal finished preparing the chicken dinner. It was dark by then so we all switched on our headlamps. Desert was watermelons, but this was cut short by a sudden cool rain shower. We all darted into our tents, but fortunately, it was time to get some rest. This development in the weather situation raised some concerns among us.

I had come supplied with Diamox pills, which are often prescribed for preventing Mountain Sickness. It is to be taken twice a day, the instructions, however, stressed it to be begun in the morning. I started it in the evening. Because this was a powerful diuretic, it meant getting up every hour or so, fumbling to unzip the sleeping bag, groping in the dark for my eyeglasses and headlamp, and quietly unzipping the tent flap. Fortunately, there was an exit for each of us on our respective sides. I would then find my boots, and wiggle out of my warm sleeping bag and out of the tent, somehow hoping not to disturb Elsa.

I was immediately immersed into the crisp and crystal clear mountain air. The ink-black sky was clearing up, the stars were out overhead twinkling gaily, and the bright moon was three days past full. Only a few feathery clouds now and then dimmed the spectacular display. The shower had been just a passing event. Thanks to the Diamox, I would witness the progression of the celestial show another half-dozen times. But I was fortunate to be able to return to the tent and immediately nod off to sleep once again.

 

Day Two: Thursday, July 17

Camp 1. This was our first full day on the mountain. It was devoted to acclimatization. We were awakened at seven in the morning. Breakfast was ready by 8:30 a.m. I took a second Diamox. It was a beautiful clear day. At 9:30 a.m., Karl led us on a warm-up acclimatization hike along the route up to Camp 2. We would climb up to 12,300 feet (3,750 meters). By now I had noticed the 125 foot or so difference in the readings between my altimeter/barometer and GPS unit. The GPS acquires radio signals from up to four special satellites orbiting overhead, which it processes and provides readings accurate up to an amazing 10 to 15 feet. The altimeter/barometer measures atmospheric air pressure, which can drift from hour to hour and day to day. One must calibrate it with a fixed unit located at a known elevation off the mountain. Thus, the GPS unit, employing the most modern high-tech systems, is always correct. Alan was wearing a wristwatch with a built-in altimeter/barometer, so he challenged the accuracy of my GPS unit against his. The only way that we could prove this was to compare the readings of both, standing atop the summit, with the latest official elevation of 16,854 feet (5,137 meters) above sea level.

Our exploratory hike went well, and we returned for lunch by 1 o’clock. The large European team of climbers had packed up and left. Earlier they had complained about some missing clothing and gear, and had suspected it to be the work of the Kurdish camp manager who had a tent nearby. We brought the matter up with Sinan, who assured us that given his relationship with the locals, we could be confident of that not happening to us. Furthermore, Jamal always remains at the camps to keep an eye on things. We had the entire Green Camp area to ourselves today. Karl had been observing our progress, and heeding his advice I quit taking Diamox.

We were learning more about our companions. Alan had been signing up for a different KE expedition for each of the past many years. On the previous year’s expedition he had climbed a 23,000-foot (7,000 meter) peak in Tibet. Cliff had climbed Mounts Kilimanjaro and Kenya. Karl was an exceptionally experienced outdoorsman. He had wintered three times in Antarctica and was insured for climbing up to 26,250 feet (8,000 meters). Karl’s experience was very important for a successful ascent. Left to our local guides, for instance, the water would be brought to a hasty boil before consumption. But the boiling point of water at Camp 1 is about 198o Fahrenheit (92o Celsius), and 186o Fahrenheit (86o Celsius) at Camp 2. Karl would make sure to add iodine tablets to purify the water. It tasted terrible, but one was much safer that way.

I had had a good man-to-man talk with Apo on the previous day, while hiking up to Camp 1. He told me of his disappointment of having to abort the final push up a 24,000-foot peak in Central Asia in order to hurry to the rescue of one of his injured teammates. We had also discussed matters of life and, of course, women. It was also becoming clear that the fact that Elsa and I went on such expeditions together was a source of admiration and envy for our companions.

Talking to Sinan, I learned about his ambition of becoming the top organizer of Ararat expeditions. He had been a long-distance open-water swimmer, but had since taken up climbing. Sinan was also prepared to bring climbers from across the border in cooperation with tour organizers in Armenia any time the political situation improved. He mentioned having contact with Avarayr Tours in Yerevan. Quite by coincidence, I knew the people at Avarayr Tours. Elsa and I had climbed Mount Aragats in Armenia in June 2001 with the assistance of their guide Andrei Chesnokov. I put in a few good words for my friends at Avarayr.

Later on, Elsa and I took the time out to reflect on the events of the past couple of days and to savor the pleasure of the solitude the mountain affords. We were in good spirits. Fully consumed by the mountain, we felt the rest of the world was all but a distant memory to us. That night without Diamox I slept blissfully like a log.

The exalted moniker of first mountaineer in the modern sense, i.e. having climbed a mountain for no other purpose than to reach the summit, is often bestowed to the Italian poet Petrarch. His claim to be called the father of mountaineering is backed by the fact of a single climb up the 6,427-foot (1959 meters) Mont Ventoux in Avignon undertaken after exhaustive training in 1336. The age of modern mountaineering, however, began in 1786, when on August 9, Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard and guide Jacques Balmat successfully summitted Mont Blanc 15,771 feet (4807 meters), the highest peak in the European Alps. At the time this news was comparable to the news of the first landing on the moon in July 1969. This triggered a frenzy of attempted first ascents in the Alps and elsewhere around the world. However, climbing Mount Ararat was considered impossible because it was believed that the summit was a cone of ice too steep to scale. In addition, the Armenian Church considered the mountain holy and the resting place of Noah’s Ark, thus discouraging it from being defiled by human feet.

The Russo-Persian War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchai in February 1828, by which the northern half of Mount Ararat was ceded to Russia. This made it safe for travelers to visit the area.

On this occasion, Dr. Friedrich Parrot, a Russo-German professor of physics at the University of Dorpat, in what is presently Tartu, Estonia wrote in his book, Journey to Ararat: “The time was now come for gratification of my long-suppressed aspiration after the mysterious mountain, and a fortunate conjecture presented me with the means conductive to the object I had in view.” Parrot recruited a botanist, a zoologist, a mineralogist, and an astronomer. Parrot was personally interested in the problems of earth magnetism, atmospheric electricity, and temperatures at high altitudes. He received full approval for the project from the emperor Nicholas I, who provided the expedition with a military escort.

Parrot was mesmerized by Ararat since when climbing the Caucasus Range back in 1811, “I stood upon the Kasbeg, during a snow storm, a momentary break in the clouds discovered in the distant south, a high, round, solitary peak—in all probability the silver crown of Ararat.”

After a gruesome 2,300-mile journey they reached Etchmiadzin in mid-September 1829. There they enjoyed a hospitable reception, and as a special honor, Parrot was shown the piece of wood from the Ark, claimed to be the one given to Saint Jacob (Hagop) by the angel.

At Etchmiadzin, Parrot met with the young Khatchadur Abovian, and was very impressed with his intelligence and enthusiasm. At the time Abovian was serving as clerk and translator to Catholicos Yeprem. Fortunately, the Catholicos assigned Abovian to the expedition as interpreter and guide because of his knowledge of Armenian, Russian, Turkish, and Persian.

After the climb, Parrot invited Abovian (1805-1848?) to study at the University of Dorpat. Abovian came to be one of the most progressive intellectuals of the time. Fourteen years later in July 1843, Abovian also accompanied the University of Munich professor Moritz Wagner on the first ascent of Mount Aragats 13,435 feet (4,095 meters) in Armenia.

The Parrot group crossed the Arax River and headed to the Armenian village of Agori situated on the northern slope of Ararat at the eastern foot of the [size4]Agori[/size] Gorge, also known as the Great Chasm, about 4,000 feet above sea level. It is here according to the Armenian legend, that Noah descended and planted the first vine. The group sat down under the foliage to, “...quench our burning thirst, to our hearts’ content, with the delicious grapes just ripening on Father Noah’s vines.” Later, following the advice of Harutiun Alamdarian of Tiflis, they set up base camp at the Monastery of Saint Jacob some 2,400 feet higher, at an elevation of 6,375 feet, as measured by Parrot.

Parrot was one of the last travelers to visit Agori and the monastery before the disastrous earthquake of May 1840, which violently shook the mountain and precipitated an avalanche of rock, snow, and ice from atop the mountain via the gorge that totally buried both the monastery and the village. None of the over 1,500 hundred inhabitants and monks survived the catastrophe. Only a few people who had been elsewhere out of town survived. In his book Parrot provides us with an invaluably detailed description of the village and the monastery.

The first attempt at climbing the mountain nearly ended in disaster. They started up the northeast slope. Their Armenian guide Sahak, a hunter from Agori was forced to turn back from about 13,500 feet, just below the snowcap for lack of warm clothing. Parrot also had to turn back later in full view of the summit. Descending the icecap, his companion tripped and slid into Parrot knocking him over. Parrot continued sliding down for nearly a quarter of a mile before miraculously coming to a stop just a few feet before the edge of the glacier.

Six days later at the advice of Stepan Khojiants, the village chief of Agori, who also joined Parrot, the ascent was attempted from the northwest side. They managed to reach an elevation of 16,028 feet. The summit was visible from this altitude, but the hour was late.

Though it was late in the season, a stretch of favorable weather encouraged Parrot to make one last attempt. This time he resolved to do things right and to plan using the experience acquired from the previous two attempts. Employing villagers from Agori, Russian soldiers, horses and oxen, they attacked the mountain from the west as in the second attempt. When the terrain became too steep and tough for the pack animals, they were unloaded and sent back. The load was distributed among the party and they continued up the rocky slope. The team made their way as high as the lower limit of the snow cover. Parrot now understood that he must camp overnight as close as possible to the limits of perpetual snow. Here at an elevation of 13,800 feet above sea level they camped for the night. A fire was soon started and Parrot made his favorite onion soup, which he considered warming and reviving in such circumstances. The Armenians were fasting in observance of a church holiday. But all did share the brandy Parrot portioned out to the members of the party.

At the first crack of dawn they set off upward and crossed over the last rocky tracts to reach the lower limit of perpetual snow. The surface was hard ice. Steps had to be cut even into the less steep slopes. They soon reached a steeper section and continued cutting steps and climbed upward. A number of minor peaks lay ahead. “Boldly onward,” Parrot recalls crying out. They were soon to feel the full force of the mountain wind. The highest pinnacle of Ararat was in sight. At last, at 3:15 p.m. on October 9 (September 27, old style Julian calendar), 1829 Dr. Friedrich Parrot and his companions stood atop Mount Ararat.

He described the summit in the following way, “I found myself on a gently vaulted, near cruciform surface of about two hundred paces in circuit, which at the margin sloped off precipitously on every side, but particularly towards the southeast and northeast. Formed of eternal ice, ... it was the austere, silvery head of Old Ararat.” About that final push, Abovian would write: “We had been mercilessly suffering such various difficulties, so when the pinnacle of the mountain appeared not far from us, each person, one after the other, climbing and descending, headed towards that direction not taking any notice, at that moment, of any difficulties and not considering their exhaustion, they were hurrying and hastening to see the spot desired by so many. It appeared as if we were winging up the slope to the sky, towards where the summit was. Our hopeless legs and wobbly knees had gathered momentum and were soaring upward, toward the astonishing aerie.”

Six men stood victoriously atop the true summit on that momentous day; Parrot, Khatchadur Abovian, two Russian soldiers, Alexei Zdorovenko and Matvei Chalpanov, and two Armenian Agori villagers, Hovannes Aivazian, and Murat Poghossian. Parrot was busy conducting experiments. Using a mercury barometer he measured the elevation at 17,210 feet (5,280 meters). This was the highest elevation climbed by man up to this date outside of Mount Licancabur in the Chilean Andes. With a small portion of wine they drank a toast to the patriarch Noah. Abovian picked up a large chunk of ice from the summit and carried it down with him. He saved it in a bottle considering the water holy.

On November 8 (Oct. 27, J.C.), Parrot and Abovian together with the Agori hunter Sahak’s brother Hago, acting as a guide climbed up Lesser Ararat.

It is regrettable, that both Parrot and Abovian had to face skepticism and disbelief of their achievement by some ignorant people and the Armenian Church of the time.

Khatchadur Abovian’s first ascent of Ararat and his subsequent achievements in mountaineering firmly establish him as the father of Armenian mountaineering.

In 1834 the Russian Kozma F. Spassky-Avtonomov, a teacher at a Tiflis religious seminary, was next to attempt the climb. It is said that he wanted to ascertain whether stars are visible from great heights during daylight hours. Being a scholar and interested in astronomy he was inspired by Jacques Balmat’s somewhat fanciful account of seeing the stars at daytime from Mont Blanc.

About catching the first glimpse of Ararat he wrote, “At the sight of the immense mass of snow the mountain is crowned with, from a distance of over one hundred versts, on a straight line, I imagined myself in my wish to climb to the top, as a mindless child wishing to seize the sun’s image in the water.”

Spassky-Avtonomov arrived at Agori on August 13 (Aug. 1, J.C.). There he met with Stepan Khojiants.

He soon picked up two locals to guide him, Hovannes Aivazian who had guided and served Parrot so well, and Heghdar Ghougasian, in addition to the elderly Haroutiun Mkerdich, a pack oxen driver. The village blacksmith fashioned metal four-point strap-on crampons of Spassky-Avtonomov’s design and also a metal tip for his pole. “My Lord! Is it indeed possible that I may reach the summit which, according to the opinion of the eloquent and learned Tournefort, was not trampled by anyone’s feet since Noah!” he thought.

The party leftAgori three days later at 3:30 a.m. They elected to follow the same western route that had led Parrot to success on his third attempt just five years earlier. At 3:00 p.m., the oxen and driver were turned back. Aivazian was able to guide them up to the spot of Parrot’s high camp, where the party settled for the night. By 6:00 a.m., after drinking tea, the trio resumed the climb. At the snowcap Spassky-Avtonomov strapped on his crampons, which to his surprise worked very well. They climbed up the steep snow slope when Aivazian shouted out cautioning about the gaping bottomless mouth of a crevasse he was ready to step into. Later Aivazian located the cross that Parrot had erected on the Agori side of the dome, marking the high point of his second attempt at 16,028 feet. Leaving the higher western pyramid to his right, Spassky-Avtonomov headed up toward the eastern peak, recognizing that it is the one visible from Agori, and which the Agori villagers consider the higher peak. Standing atop the peak he searched the cloudless sky for stars. None were visible, as they never are.

After breaking for lunch in the saddle between the two summit peaks they headed toward the main summit. Upon reaching the top of the higher western summit pyramid Aivazian shouted out and pointed that this was where the Colonel (Parrot) had stood. Spassky-Avtonomov brings this forward as yet one more proof of Parrot indeed successfully ascending the true summit, contrary to the suspicions raised by some people.

In October 1831, an official inquiry had been conducted where the two Russian soldiers corroborated Parrot’s account. Aivazian and Poghossian, however, were recorded as stating that, “We were not on the very summit… ,” which the skeptics accepted as proof of their disbelief. But Spassky-Avtonomov correctly opines that this controversy arises from the ambiguity of the translators, and the important fact that the Agori villagers and all observers from the north side of the mountain see the closer eastern summit to be the higher of the two, due to the trick played by the perspective on viewers from below. The difference between the heights is 50 feet (15 meters).

Spassky-Avtonomov, Aivazian, and Ghougasian stood atop the true summit on August 17 (Aug. 5, J.C.), 1834, and were the first and few to ascend both peaks. Most Western chroniclers, however, mistakenly report that he had only climbed up to the lower eastern summit.

All three would suffer heavily from snow blindness. Upon his return he had his son baptized with water brought from the top of Ararat.

Spassky-Avtonomov also mentions a Russian landscape painter he had talked with who had attempted to climb Ararat in 1833. Not having made any preparations, the artist took along with him only a walking stick and a chunk of bread. With no assistance from guides or porters he claimed to have nearly made it to the top, but was forced to turn back because of fatigue, the ensuing darkness, and the oncoming storm. It is believed that the said individual was the artist Vasilev, who was a teacher at the Nersessian School in Tiflis at the time.

One year later in 1835, Karl Berens, an official in the service of the Russian Emperor with a 7th grade civil service rank, on his way from Persia decided to fulfill his lifetime dream to climb Ararat. He also established base camp in Agori where he awaited favorable weather. Berens was to be the last climber to visit Agori before the devastating 1840 earthquake. On his first attempt Berens reached up to the snow line climbing from the northeast slope. Here he came across a five-foot-long pole with Russian inscription on it. Was this the pole left there by Parrot on his first attempt? Berens was able to reach the top of the dome from where the peaks were visible, but was forced to turn back. On his descent he suffered from snow blindness and high fever, just as Spassky-Avtonomov had before him.

Some three weeks later on September 2 (Aug. 20, J.C.), Berens left Agori again for his second attempt to the top. Accompanied by four guides from the village Berens headed up the mountain following the same general route of his initial attempt. They overnighted just below the snow line. Early next morning they resumed the climb and reached the snowcap where Berens protected his eyes with a fine black woolen net. The steps that he had carved out in the ice on the previous attempt were covered with fresh snow. The wind picked up soon and the sun disappeared, and they also became submerged in clouds. Crevasses from one to three feet wide appeared ahead. Berens lost contact with his companions for a while. Reunited, they climbed together and found the cross that Parrot had erected at the high point of his second attempt. The cross was buried in snow with only some seven inches of its tip visible. They also found the lead plate with Parrot’s name and year of ascent nearby. Parrot had reached this spot climbing up from the western side and recorded the elevation at 16,028 feet. Berens took a piece of the cross as a souvenir. The time was late and his guides refused to go any farther. Berens marked four hundred paces toward the summit and planted his own cross and flag there. A bottle of wine passed between them to toast their achievement.

A few weeks later two Russians named Stremooukhov and Zamelenko arrived in Armenia with the intention of climbing Ararat. There is no information as to how successful they may have been.

Herrmann von Abich was a professor of mineralogy at the same University of Dorpat as professor Parrot. He ended up specializing in the geology of the Caucasus. Professor Abich’s goal was to study the geological structure of Mount Ararat, to survey and chart an optimum route up the mountain, and to dispel all doubts that Parrot may not have reached the top. Abich made three unsuccessful attempts to climb Ararat in 1844. During this time he was accompanied by Khatchadur Abovian but each attempt was aborted by violent storms just short of the summit. They did, however, climb Lesser Ararat and spend the night on its summit.

Finally the following year, Abich set up base camp not far from Sardarbulakh at an elevation of about 8,800 feet, the highest point reached by horse. From there his party climbed up and pitched camp at an elevation of 14,128 feet. Early the next morning, they left all excess gear with the three members of the party remaining behind. Climbing to an elevation of 15,480 feet, Abich and his group came across the wooden cross, erected by Abich’s servant Karl Zenka at the highest point that they had reached on their unsuccessful first attempt the previous year. That same cross would be found by the Englishmen Robert Stuart, and Walter Thursby in 1856, leading them to speculate that Abich may never have reached the summit.

Continuing the climb, Abich and his companions approached a massive snow wall, which they successfully circumvented and then climbed atop a ridge leading to a low angle snow slope, which soon led them to the top of the eastern summit. The time was noon August 22 (Aug. 10, J.C.), 1845. Employing a mercury barometer, Abich calculated the elevation at 16,953 feet (5167 meters). Summitting with Abich were his servant Karl Zenka, translator and guide Peter I. Sharoyan a student of Abovian’s, two local Armenian villagers Hounan Martirosian and Simon Sarkisian, a survivor of the 1840 Agori avalanche, from the now New Agori, and also four Russian Cossacks.

In 1846, on September 30 the Englishman Henry Danby Seymour climbed Ararat with two Armenians guides. He would later remark that it was just to “gratify a tourist’s whim.” About the climb he wrote, “My companions were two Armenians and a Cossack officer. I remember that we slept in a woody dell before commencing the ascent in charge of the Cossack guard. We could obtain no porters, and one of the Armenians served as guide. We had to carry all we wanted for our ascent ourselves. I remember I had chickens, &c., fastened round my waist. At the last moment the Armenian who served as guide refused to come because he had no boots. I had to give him my own boots and wear some Persian slippers. The time we could stay on the summit was very short, as the clouds began to gather round us. We reached the plateau on the top and descended, I remember, by a different hollow of the mountain to that by which we had ascended, coming down a tremendous snowslide.”

Seymour had every reason to be nonchalant about the climb, after all his guides were the experienced Khatchadur Abovian, and Simon Sarkisian who had successfully guided Abich the previous year.

In 1850, Colonel Iosif I. Khodzko, a Russian Army topographer organized a massive expedition up Ararat. The goal was to conduct precision topographical triangulation and meteorological measurements. The expedition was made up of a total of 68 persons including: Khodzko, N. Khanykoff, P. Uslar, J. Alexandroff, A. Moritz, and Peter I. Sharoyan; in addition to two Armenian guides from New Agori, Simon Sarkisian, and Hounan Avakian; together with 60 Russian soldiers.

On July 31 (July 19, J.C.), the expedition arrived together from Aralykh at Sardarbulakh to spend the next 10 days making the final preparations for the ascent. Six days later Private Chougounkov was dispatched, in advance of the main group, with two other soldiers to raise a birch stake atop the summit of Ararat. Later on August 22 (Aug. 10, J.C.) the expedition moved up to an area at an elevation of 10,850 feet where they established base camp and set up a meteorological station.

With Sarkisian and Avakian in the van to guide them, on August 25 (Aug. 13, J.C.) the expedition made its way up the eastern slope of the mountain with pack animals hauling the heavy gear and scientific instruments. They followed along the route taken by Abich in 1845. Upon reaching their limit, the pack animals were turned back and the loads transferred to wooden sleds each pulled by six soldiers. Camp was set up at 14,710 feet that evening. The weather was deteriorating, but they resumed the ascent the next morning. They passed the cross left by Abich’s group and stopped for the day at 16,175 feet. The following day Khodzko climbed to 16,520 feet, where they were to spend three days hunkered down waiting out the violent snowstorm raging around them. Finally on August 18 (Aug. 6, J.C.) the storm subsided and by 9:00 a.m. the expedition reached the eastern summit topped with the stake planted by Chougounkov some days earlier. An hour later Khodzko was standing atop the higher eastern summit pyramid where a cross, carried by Sarkisian was soon erected.

Only Khodzko and Sharoyan remained on the summit for the full five days, living in a dugout snow cave lined with carpets. The other expedition members descended to the meteorological camp and returned to the summit as needed. Now blessed with clear weather Khodzko lost no time in conducting his scientific observations and measurements. Khodzko’s precision geodesic measurements put the highest point of Ararat at 16,915 feet (5,156 meters) above sea level. This value remained valid and on all maps for the next century and half! On the snowcap he reported spotting two aurochs during his stay. Khodzko descended to the meteorological camp on August 24 (Aug. 12, J.C.).

Another group of five Englishmen, Major Robert Stuart, Major Alick J. Fraser, Walter Thursby, James Theobold, and John Evans attempted the ascent of Ararat from Bayazit in 1856. This was perhaps the first attempt from the south. They reached 8,000 feet above sea level on horseback where they made camp. Early the next morning at 3:00 on August 12, all except Thursby left camp to begin the climb. Three of the four started climbing up the southern side. Fraser took off in a southeastern direction. Unable to continue the climb Stuart returned to camp. Theobold was subsequently to summit successfully at 1:45 p.m., with Evans at 2:50 p.m., and Fraser at about 3:30 p.m.

Stuart and Thursby left camp the following afternoon of August 13, and climbed to about 14,000 feet where they set up camp for the night. The next day on their way up to the summit they stumbled upon some relics left by a previous expedition. “About 1,200 feet from the summit, we came upon an oak cross that had been fixed there in the rock by Professor Abich in the year 1845; it was in perfect preservation, and the inscription, in Russian characters was still legible.” Stuart wrote. They both eventually reached the summit before 9:00 a.m. “Here I stuck to the hilt in the snow a kama, or short double-edged sword, which we found at the foot of Abich’s cross.” Stuart speculates, “Professor Abich made several attempts, but failed in all, as is proved by the position of the cross,...”

Not being familiar with the history of the mountain, Stuart mistakenly believed that they were the first to ascend Ararat.

Traveling on his way through Armenia in 1868, Douglas Freshfield, one of the great English mountain explorers, wrote in his book Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan, “Ararat burst suddenly into view—a huge but gracefully-shaped mass,…. It stands perfectly isolated from all the other ranges, with the still more perfect cone of Little Ararat at its side. From a distance and a height well calculated to permit the eye to take in its true proportions, we agreed that no single mountain we knew presented such magnificent and impressive appearance as the Armenian giant.” Also, “(I)n the distance stood Ararat, as usual wrapped in his afternoon cloud, and the two peaks of Aragats relieved against a bright-blue sky. It was a picture one longed to see transferred to canvas, by some painter equal to the occasion.” Freshfield and his companions’ attempt at climbing Ararat was not successful, only one from his party reached as high as about 16,000 feet. However, later that summer they claimed first ascents of Mount Kazbek 16,356 (4,985 meters), and of the lower eastern summit of Elbrus 18,356 feet (5,595 meters) in the Caucasus Range.

In the summer of 1876, the English traveler, historian, politician, and diplomat James Bryce traveled through the region with his friend Aeneas Mackay. In the book titled Transcaucasia and Ararat, Bryce confesses that the highlight of his trip was the ascent of Mount Ararat.

In Tiflis he met with General Khodzko. “From him and his secretary Mr. Sharoyan, I received a valuable suggestion for the climb, which we were thinking of trying, vis. to keep to the rocks rather than trust the snow, and many injunctions on no account to ascend alone. Whatever chance of success you have depends on your sleeping very high up, close to the snows, and starting before dawn to try the main peak,” advised Sharoyan who had ascended Ararat with both Khodzko and Abich.

Bryce took off from Sardarbulakh at 7,700 feet above sea level with his team of Russian soldiers and Kurds at 1:00 a.m. By 10:30 a.m., at an elevation of about 13,600 feet Bryce was left all alone, the last soldier had turned back. The effects of thin air were becoming noticeable. The summit was covered in clouds. To find his way back he began building cairns with stones.

After mounting a series of treacherous slopes he reached the lower edge of the snowcap. With low visibility before him, he began marking his progress by trailing his ice axe behind him. He climbed the peak ahead of him. However, a powerful gust of wind cleared his view to spot another peak a quarter of a mile away. He quickly realized it to be the true western summit, so he ran down the snow valley and climbed up the second peak at 2:45 p.m. on September 12.

A couple of days later in Etchmiadzin, at a meeting with the Catholicos, the interpreter turned to him and stated; “This Englishman says he ascended to the top of Ararat.” “No,” replied the Catholicos, “that cannot be. No one has ever been there. It is impossible.”

Bryce has one of the best descriptions of Ararat. He writes, “The noble thing about Ararat is not its parts but the whole. I know nothing so sublime as the general aspect of this huge yet graceful mass seen from the surrounding plains; no view fills the beholder with a profounder sense of grandeur and space than that which is unfolded when, on climbing its lofty side, he sees the farfetching slopes beneath, and the boundless waste of mountains beyond spread out under his eye. The very simplicity, or even monotony, of both form and colour increases its majesty. …There can be few other places in the world where so lofty a peak soars so suddenly from the plain so low,… and consequently few so grand.”

In 1878, another Englishman George Percival Baker arrived at the Russian army post of Ar

[Arpa]

All of the above.

The system won't allow me to respond in kind. please read my PS

You’ll have to listen to my answering machine and read my e-mails to see how many calls I get to rescue a sinking ship. Yes, I still work, at my leisure, if I may.

Where do I find these sites?

Where do you find those f***kish and Bagrat-jew-ni sites?

I guess our gray matters diverge when your’s is obsessed with those of the GW/Grey Wolf when mine is with GW/Garo Waspurakan-ian.

PS. Don’t butt heads or tails/butts with me. I know more culture/history and languages than your fricken Ottoman ancestors ever did.

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Edited October 24, 2006 by Arpa