Day 4: She really said ALPINE!

MUUUUUUUUD!!!! Glorious MUD. 🥾

Today started out with a climb up to where the snow is still fully covering the land, and it was muddy as! We both probably carried about a kg of mud on each foot for the 3km trek up. I did my best to live the life of Mudwiggle, who professes he loves mud (iykyk), but it did get annoying! You’d think the weight of the mud would mean it would drop off after a while, but no, you just keep getting taller and more unstable 🤣😐 This meant we couldn’t just give over to the mud and traipse through it - we had to keep stopping and wiping the mud off onto the little boulders dotted here and there. Eurgh!!!!

Reaching the snow line was a welcomed change of scene. We were both very happy to leave the mud behind! What we were then faced with was scenery just blanketed in snow. She really said: alpine!!! 🤣👋😳☃️ I mentioned previously that we didn’t come prepared for an alpine traverse, and this is still true. However, while the snow looks really intense in our pictures on the mountains across from us, what we were traversing didn’t have any cornices, and we figured the depth of snow would be up to our mid-thighs, at most, which was the case. There is also no ice or glaciers in this area, so no risk of crevice! Once again we had incredible weather (#sunburnt), no wind, and thus had no visibility issues at all. We were very careful not to disrupt the landscape too much, and our hiking poles came in very handy! Had these things not been the case, we wouldn’t have done it. We’d instead have found a way around this section.

Aight, away with the safety reassurance stuff and into the fray! Ben and I FROTHED this alpine traverse! It was insaaaaaaane! We can’t believe we were lucky enough to be able to hike a day like today!!! We didn’t see any signs of other humans for the entire day - we were walking on pristine snow and were surrounded by views of all the mountains alllllll day! We could see all the way to Azerbaijan!

The snow was not without other, non-human, signs of life, however. All day we walked past various animal tracks crisscrossing the landscape. We saw a heap of mountain goat hoof prints, some horse tracks, bird feet trails, as well as a lot of clearly predator pawprints - perhaps jackals, wolves, or possibly leopard 😱 While the thought of wolves and leopards scared me, I didn’t feel nearly as panicked as the other day when seeing signs of bear presence. I did, however, look behind me every so often to make sure we weren’t being chased down 🤣😭🐆

As the day went on and we climbed higher, the snow became thicker and it became harder for us to progress. We really slowed down, as every second step we’d sink to our knees or thighs in the snow and have to climb out only to fall in again (Ben’s still in shorts this whole time 🫣). Some snow shoes would have been helpful 🫠😬🙄

On top of that, our final climb up to the highest point of today’s traverse (2500m) was a bit precarious. The path took us along the mountainside above a deep valley far below us. While even here there was sporadic amounts of dirt and alpine vegetation poking through the snow, it was incredibly slippery in some places, so we had to be really careful where we put our feet. It was during this section that I got really fed up with the snow being so soft and deep! It was mental and emotional exhaustion, at this point - my nervous system was once again on quite high alert for a long period of time. I was ready to descend, get to the Horadis ruined village, and make camp. Ben, on the other hand, was living his best life! 🤣👏

We finally came to the top of the ridge and were once again greeted with incredible views of North Armenia. Far below us we could make out the ruins of Horadis Village - it was just a matter of getting down. This put the pep back in my step! And Ben did some rolly-pollying down a little slope - like I said, living his best life 🤣

Descending to Horadis was epic. We basically ski’d down (not in a straight line by any means, as we had to be careful, but there was much whooping coming from me - now I was living my best life! Highly recommend 👏🤣

Believe it or not, we reached camp and got the tent and dinner all set up BEFORE THE SUN WENT DOWN! That’s a first for us 🤪 I got to have my little river shower in the sun! Thank god, because it’s bloody cold up here!

The ruins of Horadis seem to still be in use by cattle farmers over the summer, so perhaps it is more accurate to say the ruins of the monastery in Horadis, plus a few other ruins of buildings. It’s a pretty sight on the cliff top - we can just imagine what it’s like when the trees and flowers are in full bloom! So picturesque! The monastery is beautiful in its decay, and still delicately used. There are candles inside for people to light and pray, and there were recent signs of worship. There are large cavernous openings where the ceiling has collapsed, and long spear-like icicles hanging from the ceiling. We decided it was time to leave when, not an icicle, but a piece of the ceiling fell and landed beside Ben, shortly followed by other pieces of masonry. 😐

We are camping tonight as we have no other accommodation options! Such is the life of thru-hiking. We are hunkering down for a cold night, and have lit a fire to keep us toasty in the meantime.

One thing we haven’t captured in our pictures is the rubbish left at this campsite by other campers. The actual campsite looks more like a tip… so we’ve pitched our tent in the trees. Even here there is rubbish, but we’ve managed to clean it up okay. It’s infuriating how people treat the land sometimes. It’s infuriating how disconnected people are from the land in general - infuriating because this disconnection seems to be intentional on a societal-economic level. Trees aren’t deemed useful in our society until they’re cut down and sold to make a profit. And more than that, when people don’t feel looked after by society (community, government, etc), they stop looking after society. Right or wrong, this pattern is seen all over our planet. It genuinely hurts to see nature treated with such disdain, and we so wish things were different.

Anyway. So as not to finish on a negative - the stars tonight are out in full swing, and it is wonderful sitting here on a log together, being warmed by the fire, and writing about our epic day! It truly was epic.

Tomorrow we head for Martiros, but we’re hoping to hitch a ride to a town called Zaritap so we can stay in a guesthouse. It’s meant to be raining tomorrow afternoon, and then HEAVILY raining all of Sunday morning!! ⛈️ If we don’t manage to get a ride, we’ll be in our tent. Good thing it’s waterproof! 🫡

Peace out! Hope you all have a fab weekend 🩵🌸🤗Read more