Chairlift

Chairlift

Belokurikha is a resort town in the southern edge of the Siberian steppe. Here you will find hills blanketed in green.   Purposefully planted firs and birch forests fill the town's air with a medicinal vapor. The town is crowded with curing resorts, spas, sanatoria, hostels and hotels. The ionized radon tinged waters are famous for their health benefits and regional physicians have decades of studies to prove the correct times, temperatures, and treatments in these waters for various ailments.

I came for the hiking.

We did get to hike on Saturday morning, and it was a short hike the tour leader preferred to aim toward vodka drinking and folklore rather than reaching a summit. We have a group of 18 so peaking isn't on everyone's bucket list.

Saturday, after lunch, summit seekers were brought up to a chairlift. This may sound like cheating, but I have done this before. In Arizona, I was 15 when Aunt Suzy took me and Ray up Snowbowl in August to see the view and hike around.

I remembered that hike and a few other chairlifted hikes as I took in the fresh air, the landscapes, and enjoyed the ride up. In China I went up to the wall at Sim Ai Tai, and in Poland, I spent a day on a mountain after waiting in the Katowce lift line for ages. The vodka tour "consultant" here really didn't think the lift would be interesting and tried to scratch it in favor of banya time - with vodka. He might have had some takers.

We had an even 10 or twelve go for the lift trip. Sebastian and I snapped photos, mine are destined to be screensavers and backgrounds since they are just the patterns you see below and around you as you glide and creak along the cable. Don't think about the cable when you dangle in the air: small steel bars and a wood plank seat propping you on the letter c that carries you up the mountain. I did. I wondered how the steel cable is joined because it must be a completed circle. And before that, Sebastian had to point out how slack the line was on our upward side, while the down direction was taut. Just enjoy the view.

The view is not just pretty, or full of good air. It is instructional. From the lift you can see the steppe as it meets the hills, and the neatly planted rows of trees that green the mountains and waken your lungs. You can see the crops, rivers, small lakes and Siberian town where you never one year ago imagined you would ever go.

In the lift you notice the way the trees below have died or grown. Their moss does what it is supposed to do, on the north side, on the lower trunks. Ferns and lichen are so busy they yell from below, "look down at us!!!", and we do. Giant boulders with sparkling mineral chips, and more lichen, jutt their hard elbows out of the mountain to warn us to sit still on our letter c chairs. And we do.

Sebastian says the trees are mossy and damp near the bottom. I wonder back if that is how deep the snow was last year. He sees trees that look like birch on top, but are not white below. I see a dead tree that looks like an alligator. I think I hear a bird but ask,"is that the lift making that sound?" It is a bird that we never see. After the 20 minute ride, we turn back to see that view. And then turn forward fast so we don't miss the hop off.

What i did miss was my group when I stopped to feed chipmunks. I fed chipmunks by hand. I could pet their belly as they leaned in to take black seeds from my palm. But then I found myself alone, asking people in Russian, "did you see the big group of Americans go by?" And another, "which way did the big group of foreigners go?" Because the last couple I asked said it was a big group but they didn't hear what language. I go to an empty place and remember how Henry got lost last summer in Canada trying to find the outhouse. The helicopters went looking for him when he didn't come home from a morning pee. I find the group. I find everyone, it's crowded at the top.

There is more to see all over the top of this hill. We climb on rocks that look like churches, a story of isolation, martyrdom, and love. More vodka. We see the tied, torn strips of trash and fabric attempting to honor an Altai tradition of sacred places. A true Altai tradition only uses white cotton or white clean fabric, Yelena says.

I ride down the lift with Ryan and we find out, dangling in Siberia, that we both know Maria Gillard. She is a folk musician, a great family friend. Last year when I hiked the AT in Massachusetts, I met a man who also knew Maria. It was just a year and one week ago that I sat on that peak, after a good morning hike alone, with hikers heading the other way on that long trail. He came and joined us too and we all said where we were from, where we would go, and something nice we knew about those other places, and honored those other journeys. Yes, Rochester, good music there.

Sebastian smashed a coin at the top of the mountain, it is a souvenir that you can make. We were surprised by its light weight.

The views and the hike were well worth the time. It never felt like cheating, it was an authentic, dynamic, mountain trip.