Visiting the furry people

Searching for a job is depressing. Searching for a job for much longer time than expected is depressing, mind-numbing and taxing in every single way you can imagine. And I am fully aware I have not been unemployed nearly as long as many other people. Anyways, at some point you need some kind of distraction from all this and from the fact that the next planned trip isn’t until August. It’s hard to find anything that is able to distract you from the daily suckery but that is what trips are for!

I hereby present to you this year’s “I need to get away and be able to think about something else for a while”-trip.

9^th – 10^th of April

Fly out from Copenhagen, layover in Doha and continue to Kampala. The original plan was to fly with Emirates – they have the A380 going CPH-DXB with economy also on the top floor – but considering price, length of layovers, and the quite large difference in reviews on Skytrax I ended up going with Qatar instead.

11^th of April

A long day’s drive west to Kalinzu Forest Reserve. The tour is an overland camping tour so things will be similar to when I did my Southern Africa trip where we have a large bus/truck containing everything we need and the nights are spent in tents.

12^th of April

We will be getting up early in the morning to do a chimpanzee trek followed by a tea plantation visit afterwards. To be honest if the chimpanzee trek drags out I won’t be the one to complain if we are forced to skip the plantation. End the day by driving to Lake Bunyonyi.

13^th of April

Gorilla trek. Not much else to say, is there? Whatever time not spent on the trek is spent relaxing. Looking back to when I was there in 2010 that’s probably a good thing; the humidity and conditions you walk in doesn’t really encourage much running around after returning from the trek.

14^th of April

Free day to do (almost) whatever we want. Among the list of choices is also the chance to do a day trip to Rwanda. That sounds quite tempting, to be honest.

15^th – 16^th of April

Drive back to Kampala, spend a night there and continue east towards Jinja.

17^th of April

Spend the day in Jinja for relaxing and activities.

18^th – 19^th of April

Return to Kampala midday before getting on a flight home in the late afternoon.

Back into the skies!

The last few trips I have been on have had a severe lack of summits. The last few trips have been focused on wildlife/nature and treks but the last two climbs were back in 2015 when I did Aconcagua and Mont Blanc (and failed both) so I haven’t had a successful climb since 2014 when I went to India to climb Stok Kangri.

So something has to be done.

So… something is being done. The company I usually go on climbs with has a new trip on offer in a location you would not normally consider a vacation destination. The summit is Damavand, the tallest volcano in Asia, located just outside Tehran in Iran.

3^rd – 4^th of August

Flying out from Copenhagen and arriving in Tehran just after midnight. Getting checked in at the hotel and have the first day off with a chance to see Tehran.

5^th of August

Tehran is close to the mountains – including Damavand – which means that it’s used as base for all climbs in the area. We’ll drive north to Darband and follow it with a 4 hour walk up to the villages Pas Ghale and Shirpala. Here we will spend the night at 2800m.

6^th of August

Today we will attempt reaching the summit of Tochal, a 3965m tall peak which will give us a view of Tehran and Damavand with snow all year round. From there we will return down to Shirpala and continue to Tochal Telecabin which we will take to the bottom form where we’ll drive to the Polur Federation refuge at the base of Damavand.

7^th of August

We will start off driving and continue by foot for 4-5 hours up to Bagarh at 4180m. Depending on availability we will either be in a hut or tents. This is the tallest camp on the mountain.

8^th of August

Today we will simply acclimatize up to app. 5000m to where there is a frozen waterfall. We will return to Bagarh for the night.

9^th of August

Summit day starts like all summit days; before the sun rises. It’s a technically easy summit but the mountain is massive and it’s easy to get lost in bad weather. There are some relatively steep passages on the way up until you reach the ridgeline at around 5400m from where it eases up and becomes an almost endless ascent to the summit at 5671m. Estimated 6-8 hours up and half that returning to Bagarh.

10^th – 11^th of August

Return down to Polur where we’ll drive back to Tehran, spend the night at the hotel and fly home the following day.

It’ll feel good to get back onto a mountain. I hope I’ll be able to do so more in the future but in the end it all comes down to prioritization.