Hi!
The most emotional and the most physically demanding was climbing the Uchitel Pass. This pass is marked in difficulty categories as the simplest - 1A (but the very presence of this marking indicates that everything is serious here). Beginner climbers are trained at this pass. And we weren't climbers at all, we were just curious travelers. There were even a few elderly people in our group.
The height of the pass above sea level is 3 kilometers 100 meters. The ascent begins at about 3 kilometers. That is, we had to climb up a kilometer. Can you imagine a kilometer that you walk in length on a flat surface? So now lift it vertically up. He will surely be lost somewhere in the clouds.
At first, the ascent was along a slope overgrown with grass. The slope was so steep in the ascent that sometimes it seemed that there was no way to climb higher. Again, imagine a board leaning against a wall at an angle of 45 degrees. Try to climb it. Then it got easier. The slope became smaller, the grass ended and the rubble began. It was not easy to walk along it either.
And then there's the impossibly strong wind. who didn't stop for a second. Sometimes we didn't hear each other. I just had to scream. We climbed for several hours (you will walk a kilometer along the road in 15 minutes at a leisurely pace). And, by the way, not everyone has reached the coveted peak.
Some returned back to the camp because they felt that they did not have enough strength for this ordeal. And they did the right thing. Someone reached the top of the pass, collapsed on the rocks and lay there all the time that we were there without getting up. But the beauties that opened up to us from this height were indescribable. No photographs can convey the full scope and enormity of the scale of what they saw. I understand how birds must feel when flying over the plains at a great height.
The only mountains that can be better than mountains are those that you haven't been to yet!