Peak Lenin - Kyrgyzstan

September 12, 2019

Peak Lenin - Kyrgyzstan

Once, after a nice winters day in January 2019; after some good skiing, I got this message: Sofie Lenaerts: Liesbeth, we are going to climb Peak Lenin with a Belgian group this summer. It's in Kyrgyzstan. Are you interested in coming with us? Me:
eeeeuuu Kyrgyzstan??? I had actually planned to go there by bike, starting in 3 months from now. Sofie: 'Well, you can give us your ski/climbing gear and just make sure to be there on time!! So you can join us! Me:
'hmm, let me think...Yes I'm in in!'
And That was it: Peak Lenin had made the itinery!!!!
Of course I considered it for a few more days.. not sure if it was practically a good idea to combine a long-distance cycling trip, with a high-altitude mountaineering project. But the only way to know is to try.

I was in.

So once the ski season was over in Switzerland; I went to Belgium to drop off my stuff at Fisiotics, in Kampenhout; where the other Belgians would have hypoxic trainings to prepair for the altitude.

And then, I took my bike and went to Kyrgyzstan.

I'm not going to talk in detail about the whole Peak Lenin adventure. I think the pictures will talk for themselves.
I’ll just give you these numbers: Peak Lenin: 7134m Basecamp: 3600m Camp 1: 4300m Camp 2: 5300m Camp 3: 6200m We started this project with 18 people; 6 made it to the summit. I was not one of them. I spend 18 days on the mountain, inbetween basecamp and camp 3. I skied down once from +- 5900m, and once from 6200m And oh yes, it was there that I met Slava: the most craziest skiguide in the world.

So, the reason I was not one of the people on the summit, and that I chose to go no higher than camp 3, was because above 5500m my heart was doing such strange things, things I had never felt before and things which felt very scary to me. It didn't get better after one nights 'rest'; on the contrary.
So I decided that camp 3, would be my summit.

Maybe I could have gone higher... maybe not.

You could say that I failed the summit attempt, or that I didn't even start the attempt. But I don't really feel it’s like that. For me it was a crazy experience, that I wouldn't want to have missed. I had 2 f* cool ski runs down- one being from above 6000m. It was especially awesome skiing in-between the crevasses, jumping over them was real fun.

And here’s a thought, I'm probably the first Belgian woman who has even done that; skied down from above 6000m. Correct me if I'm wrong, I would be glad to know!

So, I really want to thank everyone who was part of this adventure and made this possible. Neige-Aventure for the support, all the teammembers: thanks for the good time and for the break from cycling... thanks to the local guides... and of course, thanks to Stef and Sofie, who did so much work to organise the whole thing!