Full Moon over Noah's Ark

by Rick Antonson

  I realized our expedition of six was not going to be alone on the mountain. Our group had been kept small, as promised by Zafer. But he’d not been forthcoming that there was a companion climb under his simultaneous command.

  Part of the Armenian contingent was sequestered at another hotel in Van. One of the vehicles left to pick them up and would meet Ian and Charlie at their respective hotels as well. Our minibus would pick up Goran near Van Castle in an hour and rejig the seating arrangements there.

  When Zafer mentioned the castle visit, I felt castled/fortressed/churched-out. “Maybe we could just head to Doğubeyazıt?” I suggested, still working on my pronunciation, slowly letting it out. Dohh-ouhh-bay-ahh-zit. “Everyone is keen to get sorted out for tomorrow’s start on Ararat.” I didn’t think that selfish.

  “Old Van Castle is important.” Zafer was adamant. “You will be only one who doesn’t want to see it.”

  I felt selfish.

  After driving a road that sputtered out before the high-walled history that was Van Castle, the two minibuses met up again. Zafer arrived in his own vehicle, alone. Charlie came over to our vehicle in a shot. “Let’s get organized and be on the mountain first,” he urged. “There are twelve of them. It could be a crowded climb.”

  Goran was optimistic. “It won’t be crowded after an hour of climbing. I don’t see them as fit as our six. The gap between us and them could show quickly.” I didn’t say it out loud, but our own group, with the exception of Ian, didn’t consist of climbers either. We were hikers and trekkers experienced on ridges, not rock-scaling mountaineers.

  Zafer shouted for everyone’s attention.

  “I have made arrangements for two groups to be on Mount Ararat these coming days,” he explained. “You are all here. We know a Spanish climbing party is ahead of us, as they left yesterday. A Russian team has been on the mountain for two days. They attempt summit tonight if weather holds. It’s been windy. Snow at top. Rain too. All bad.”

  Nico, Patricia, Goran, Charlie, and I were standing near Zafer. We had all placed our confidence in his abilities. Ian, walking over to us with daypack in hand, set it down in the dirt. Our team stood together.

  “There are many people in the Armenian group here,” Zafer said, unnecessarily. “They should please stand over there. Other group we call ‘the internationals’—they are from all over.” He let out a nervous cough when saying that. “Patricia, Charlie, all of you, will go in that minibus. Four of the Armenians will travel with you to the base of the mountain. When you start hike tomorrow, you will have two different guides and set out at two different times. Nico’s group goes up first.”

  “And you will be our guide,” Patricia added, looking for confirmation.

  “Actually,” Zafer said, “I have to return to Van. It is unfortunate, but it is business. I have no choice.” Clearly there was not going to be a discussion. “Ahmet will be your guide. He is what you would call a mountain man.” Zafer shouted to a man, happily transferring our packs to the group’s vehicle, who smiled our way. “Ahmet, come and meet your expedition!”

  I winced. Then I winced again. I hardly knew Zafer but had felt I’d had a reading of the man and his competence. This new guide was a mystery—his mannerisms, his ability to harness our enthusiasm into mountain climbing, or his willingness to straddle two camps of hikers. Uncertain characteristics could determine success or disaster on the mountain. He was capable-looking, but that surface was yet to be scratched. The second wince was for the subtle movement of the Armenians’ guide to our group, as though Zafer implied an unhelpful ranking.

  Zafer’s move off the leadership roster was more a problem for the Armenians than for us. It meant that Ahmet, who was to have been second in command and had earlier been introduced as their group’s leader, was now the main man on the mountain, gifted right there and then by Zafer to lead “the internationals.” Before much could be made of this, Zafer addressed the Armenians. “I have a very good guide, name is Kubi, he is next best to Ahmet—and Ahmet is next best to me. Kubi will be the guide now for your group. You will be pleased.”

  The man who was piling luggage on top of the second minibus stopped his work and came down to meet the restless Armenians. Kubi’s face was browned by time and inheritance. He was a Turkish Kurd who looked to be in his thirties, part mountain herder, part mountain guide, and, like Ahmet, looked competent enough. But the change in guides had been so sudden, and I wondered what the odds were that either Ahmet or Kubi would be as inspiring and competent a guide as we’d believed Zafer to be.

  * * *

  As our vehicles were being prepared, an older Armenian said to me, “We are anxious to finally get here. It is the ambition of many Armenians to make a personal visit to Ararat at some point in their lives, a pilgrimage similar to the hajj, the Muslims’ journey to Mecca.”

  “Me too,” I said, not realizing where his comment was taking us.

  “Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, is only thirty miles from the north side of Ararat,” he said. “It is a face that watches over us, though it is blocked from access by a wire fence erected by Turkey.12 We go to Akhaltsikhe in Georgia. From there we enter Turkey and go south to Kars. This route takes many hours.” One must allow for the border protocols, he explained, which can cause delays.

  His frustration was evident, having just made the trip. “Often you need to overnight. It’s four more hours to Doğubeyazıt. Twenty-hour journey all in.” I’d traveled a long way to get here, but did not have to endure the emotional disruption that he had, nor did I have to stare at this mountain every day, cut off from the Armenians’ state but not their spirit.

  “Our trekking permit costs twice as much as yours, because of our last names,” he added.

  I could only nod in acceptance of his exasperation when he said, “Mount Ararat is Armenia’s mountain!”

  Ahmet was alone when I approached him. “May I ask a favor?” I said. “I would like to spend a night here in a village. Alone, without the others.”

  “You are the man Zafer told me to meet,” he said, “I will ask my grandfather. It is possible for you to stay with him.”

  Zafer again called for everyone’s attention. With the Van Castle as his backdrop, he announced his intention for all of us to spend the next hour or two walking about the castle. No one shared his enthusiasm. “Can’t we just go to Doğubeyazıt straight away?” asked one of the American Armenians I’d met the day before.

  “Good idea!” Goran echoed.

  “Yes, we are anxious to get settled,” said a clerical-looking Armenian.

  “Got my vote for that,” Ian added. There was a tentative movement of the group toward the vehicles.

  Zafer acquiesced. We were on our way to Doğubeyazit.

  Our group repacked into one of the minibuses, as directed. The appointed Armenians came with us. Ahmet now drove our vehicle, and Kubi the other. Zafer disappeared without a last word after the Van Castle tour was cancelled.

  The road to Doğubeyazit was in good condition, and we made decent time as we began to work our way down into the city. “There it is!” Ian shouted on our descent. “There’s Ararat.” He was sitting up in the front seat beside Ahmet. Ahmet found the side of the road.

  The second minibus stopped alongside us. We fanned out to take photos of Mount Ararat in the purple haze. The giant spread much wider than its noted peak rose. I recalled Eric Newby, in his book Great Ascents, describing the majestic scene we were now witnessing: “The whole Ararat massif rises in splendid isolation from the Armenian Plateau.”

  Ahmet said, “This might be the best view you get of the mountain. It may be the only time you actually see it whole.” No one rushed; it got me wondering what message we were to be absorbing—and I realized we were not to be overwhelmed by our own ambitions.

  More than 150 years earlier, British mountaineer Robert Stuart’s account of his approach to Ararat conveyed the same awe we all felt: “the snow-clad cone stood out in distant relief.” His
arrival onto the mountain brought a discipline necessary for all who moved from awe to ascent—a difficult set of decisions we ourselves were to be called upon to make, and to watch unfold with our mountain companions.

  In 1856, Stuart’s attempt to summit Mount Ararat demonstrated a willingness to let those climbers capable of success attempt the peak separately. It also showed the personal diligence to stay on the mountain until the entire team had completed what it came for.

  Stuart’s book, Early Ascents of Ararat, derided the claims of both Friedrich Parrot and his contemporary Herman Abich, to have ascended Ararat. It was an attempt to relegate them to the margins of mountaineering. This assertion left Great Britain the bragging rights if its climbers led by Stuart could achieve the feat, placing the burden on the shoulders of the good major. Masked vanity is a danger in mountaineering. Armenians, who had provided support resources for both Parrot and Abich, curiously sided with the British, declaring that no one they knew of had reached the peak prior to the Stuart party attempt.

  On the day they hoped to summit as a team, Stuart lagged behind his fellow climbers. Not feeling well, he became fatigued. He had the prudence to seek shelter and waited alone while two of his cohorts, experienced alpinists James Theobald and John Evans, “crowned the final difficulty.”

  The fourth climber that day, Major Alick Fraser, had decided to take a more southeastern line of ascent and moved on his own. Less experienced in snow climbing than the other three, he gauged an “easier” approach that ironically nearly cost him his life. He was within a hundred feet of the summit when, misjudging the sparse layer of snow covering the ice, he lost his footing. Fraser slipped onto his back. He “shot downwards with the speed of lightning upwards of 1,000 feet,” until a build-up of snow between his legs brought him to a halt. Later he would say that only because he had kept his “ice-staff” was he able to get off the glacier. He not only regained his lost ground but also eventually achieved the summit.

  A fifth member of the expedition, Reverend Walter Thursby, along with a refreshed Stuart, made arrangements to summit within two days, climbing all day to gain a favorable position by nightfall. In a dispute over the appropriateness of staying overnight at such a height, their Kurdish helpers left Thursby and Stuart alone on the mountainside, where they rolled themselves up in carpets to keep warm. In the morning, they left their rugs behind and climbed to the peak of Mount Ararat. The Stuart expedition illustrated Ararat’s demands: the necessity of deferred authority, the strictness of good judgment, and the honest evaluation of climber abilities and priorities. Both our group and the Armenians’ group would learn from that.

  Doğubeyazit was more bustling than I’d anticipated; I’d pictured it in my mind as a remote rural community that prepped mountain trekkers. I’d failed to consider its key location in an agricultural area, and with trade routes crossing through here north to south and to the west from the east—though that business was limited now by Iran’s embargoed abilities for imports and exports—it had once been a prosperous city. How many innocent people, I wondered, do such Western sanctions harm? Fewer, I supposed, than war.

  Across from our hotel was a pile of weathered building materials that had been there for some time. Many buildings appeared abandoned midway through construction. We learned that owners built piece-meal in Doğubeyazit: only when they had enough money in hand for the next step in the process to add a wall or complete a floor. At the street level, the partially finished building would be in use as residence or a business, while steel rods thrust out of the second or third unfinished floor—a rebar marker signaling eventual completion—and in many cases conveniently qualifying a building as unfinished and therefore not subject to taxes.

  The desk clerk at the Hotel Isfahan was caught unaware by our arrival and began assigning accommodation without any room listing, taking down names as if seeing them for the first time.

  “Antonson,” I said, being the last to sign in. “I’d like to leave a pack here in storage while I’m away on Ararat.”

  “Yes. You can leave everything in your room.”

  “After tomorrow morning, I will be gone for five or six days. Won’t you need the room?”

  “You can leave everything in your room.”

  I asked him if there was a message for me from Zafer. Before he had disappeared at Van Castle, I’d again asked him to help me reach Paraşut, in hopes of seeing for myself the cave where he claimed an ancient wooden formation was locked in ice. But Zafer didn’t share my amusement.

  After stowing my packs in the room, I looked around the Isfahan’s lobby and saw a couch from which I could eavesdrop on the Armenians. I was curious about their approach to the climb. Plunking myself down, the unfinished Gilgamesh book in hand, I listened in on our companion group. Three of the Armenian climbers were particularly serious about the physical demands. All their talk was in English, and it began with reference to the day’s exercise earlier in the morning. They debated what to leave behind at the hotel: “I can jettison all my trip material for later, except medication.” “The weather report says high winds, maybe snow. I’ll put my rain gear in the horse’s pack.”

  “We need to sort out our guide,” said one of them. “He is not talkative.” But there was more to it than that. “With Turkish handlers I feel constantly forced to recognize that this mountain is no longer Armenian.”

  Like us, the Armenians had been assured that Zafer would guide them to the summit. They wanted to be led by the person who had made their arrangements, and now felt unmoored. Nerves were fraying. The nearness of departure to the mountain courted moody bouts of anxiety in all of us.

  The only woman in the Armenian party, vivacious and in everyone’s good favor, seemed, like most in the room, to have worked at being in shape for the climb. I asked her, “How do you feel about Ararat?” She mistook that for a question about its relevance, answering, “It is necessary for Armenians to make this trip, to be on our mountain. It is more than symbolic.”

  “How do you feel about the big mountain itself, about being on the steep side of it, going up, up?” I stressed. “How do you feel about tomorrow?”

  “Oh, it will be fine. I want to be here. That is my motivation. We will make it.”

  Thinking acclimatisation, I asked, “Will you hike around for two days, or—”

  She cut me off. “We are going to the top. That is why we came.”

  It was early evening. Ahmet assembled both climbing teams to brief us about the mountain in the morning. He had the air of an unruffled problem solver, moving around the hotel lobby, telling everyone to gather in the corner of the room for a final talk about safety and organization. I suspected this was not the first time he had been promoted to lead guide at the last minute. The expedition groups clustered near the front door in their own separate groups.

  Ahmet spoke about the coming day. “Everyone must put safety first—or mountain has problem with you. Each leave another name with us in case you have difficulty with mountain and we need to notify.” I wondered if there were outstanding issues that prompted Ahmet to make this comment.

  “All of you will be in tents we provide,” he added. I was glad to hear that I could leave the weight of my one-man tent behind at the Isfahan. Ahmet held high a slip-on boot cover for all to see, metal prongs extending from its base. “We will pass out now these crampons to everyone who rent them. Make sure they work. Fit and strap. If you have walking poles, leave them out of your pack, as you will want them for the lowest part of the mountain. If you have an ice axe, strap it away until the final ascent.”

  He assured us that they would be providing food, but if we wanted energy bars or chocolate or fruit while hiking up, then we should make sure we had these in a day pack. “All your main packs will be put on horses. They will carry them up the mountain. Our cooks will go ahead and set up food camp for when you arrive.”

  The Eastern Anatolia vicinity of Mount Ararat and Lesser Ararat, in Turkey, shows the two volcanic con
es and their proximity to the Iranian and Armenian borders.

  To me it sounded like Ahmet was rattling about in his memory to dredge up lecture notes for a speech he just found out he had to deliver.

  “Remember,” he said with the opening enthusiasm of someone who knows you may not yet know what he’s about to say, “that in the morning we drive first. Once on mountain we hike many hours. Up. Camp we do around 10,000 foot. Be ready for rain. Wind. If not, enjoy. Next day more hours. Also up. We camp at 14,000 feet. You are high then. Air is low then. Maybe take extra day. Get to know the air. Personally, each different. All need air. Nighttime, then or next day, we climb long hours to summit. That’s top.”

  The expedition’s climbing route on Mount Ararat, in the Turkish province of Ağrı. Southern routes to the summit were determined by Navarra and others to be less forbidding than Parrot’s northern attempts. Over the years, it has been refined to this long, arduous approach used in summer, fit for “climbers who are familiar with the use of axe and crampons.”

  There was a murmur of wincing in the room.

  “Ararat is unorganized mountain. You ask for six horses to pack up, three show. This we may find. Stop if your heart hurts. If you have headache, guide must be told. It is difficult to get a sick person down, the higher you go.”

  Someone asked, “Who brings a sick person off the mountain?”

  “The same people trying to take you up,” said Ahmet. He considered the mood, wanting to motivate us but also to be practical. “The mountain will say if it wants you.” That philosophy fit with the room’s psyche about Ararat lore, a tribute to an inanimate object with godlike powers, but it left me feeling disenfranchised and less independent. None of us had previously considered the idea of being unwanted by the mountain.

  “For night of climb to summit, you need flashlight,” Ahmet said. “Flashlights need batteries. Check tonight. The store down the street sells batteries. You are a danger to us if you don’t have light on the mountain. Please.”