Circling the Golden Mountains The Five Bridges of the Kara Koba STORY & PHOTOGRAPHS by ZAND B. MARTIN THE BRIDGE WAS GONE. The Now open to the world, it is in peril as third bridge stood, repaired at some two twisted steel stringers were swept ironclad conservation practices and point with sawed telephone poles still parallel to the far shore, the planking community-based sustainable tourism sporting their wire hangers. On bridges sloughed into the current 15 feet below. and development have been unevenly four and five, the planks are gone, We stared in amazement at the forces adopted. Through Siberian Russia, leaving only the bent, rusted girders on display and with a shrug laid down Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan, we groaning 15 feet above the rushing our bikes, retrieved a duffel of dry bread pedaled and skied our way across the current, and we engineered solutions and waxy Russian cheese, and sat beside border of winter and early spring and our mothers are encouraged not to our disappointment. explored this junction of steppe, desert, ask us about. In nine hours of extreme The story of this bridgehead is and taiga, one of the most unique and effort, we made eight kilometers. etched in the landscape. Avalanche pristine montane ecosystems on Earth. debris melts and deforms into Conservation across political snowfields along the valley bottom, and frontiers is a worldwide concern, and in the river channel the scraps and cuts here in the heart of Asia we found a of ice-out and freshet mark the banks. vital laboratory. It is the northernmost This bridge, the second of five, was of the great mountain complexes lifted and smashed a year before — or that radiate north and east from the 10 or 50 — we have no way of knowing. collision of the Indian subcontinent The rusting box girders mix with old with Eurasia, and its location, structure, snow and river gravel, the deck long and history have conspired to create since washed away. a tremendous, unmatched bio- and We spent days grinding uphill and ethnodiversity. It is a place of cultural postholing through thigh-deep snow and ecological convergence. to reach the valley of the Kara Koba The mountainsides dropped to the and in it discovered an abandoned, river in mixed meadow and taiga, and muddy, rutted track. Logs marked with we scouted the left bank, sure of our ax strokes cross bogland, and mud and forward momentum. In three hours of avalanche debris slowed us to a walk heavy lifting, we portaged along cliff as the old road rose and fell through bands and through snow, walking in forest and meadow. On a journey that at the river’s margin when required. The every turn threatened challenge, arrest, exhaustion, and hysterically contrarian conditions, the absence of the second bridge was no true surprise. Crossing this distant range was a fool’s journey as it has always been. We came here to circumnavigate the Altai Mountains by bike and ski, and in this glaciated range at the northern edge of the vast endorheic basins of Central Asia, we found a measure of challenge and wildness that cast our expectations in absurdity. With a pair of skis strapped to touring bicycles, we traced a 3,000-kilometer circle through four countries to better understand the range. Specifically, we wanted to explore how the arbitrary lines on the map have helped and hurt the lives of the Altai peoples and the conservation of their lands. This last refuge of snow leopards, Top: All manner of wildlife call the Altai home, including camels. nomads, and shamans is thought to be Middle: A rare hard-sided respite in the remote central Asian mountains. STORY PHOTOGRAPHS & the legendary location of Shangri-la. Bottom: Many bridges had been long-ago washed away, so finding one intact was a rare luxury. by ZAND B. MARTIN ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 21 This track, once a road, was built broke in 1917, this small work gang was crushed — again. Two kilometers of between 1915 and 1917 by Austro- surely caught in the middle. Were they switchbacks made up our descent to the Hungarian prisoners captured on the repatriated by Trotsky in time? Or did Kara Koba, depositing us on the floor of Eastern Front of the Great War. They they join the Czechslovak Legion in its the valley wet to the waist and covered toiled in these remote mountains at the long fight from Europe to the Pacific in mud. Rolling out of the snowbound edge of the Russian Empire, thousands and race the nascent Red Army along forest, slush dropped from spokes of miles from the fighting. They cut the Trans-Siberian Railroad in armored and racks. We had moved into sun, this rough track through the mountains trains bound for Vladivostok and Allied leaving a postholed, pannier-plowed with shovel and pickaxe, rope and evacuation to America? No one knows. track behind. Returning that way was saw, bridging the Kara Koba five times A train of horses and Kazakh unmentionable. through its wild gorge. They connected herders passed us in the wilderness. I But our deliverance appeared right the valley of the Bukhtarma, once the watched and waved from the cobbles, under our noses, and we jogged up to northern route on the great Silk Road, washing dishes from dinner with the twisted bridge to reconnoiter. Clear with China and the basin of the Black water from the stream. The men snowmelt ran below, wrapping rocks Irtysh. waved, offered cigarettes, and plunged in foam and racing out of the gorge For their achievement, the track their horses into the swollen current upstream. Beyond the crossing, the is still called the Austrian Road. The in a race against daylight. An hour track zippered up the far pass and gave Czech, Slovak, Austrian, and Hungarian before, we had stood at the fifth and access to the Bukhtarma. Slowly, we prisoners who labored in this remote last bridgehead and watched the crawled out onto the two-inch metal wilderness left no trace save the track run out into space. Nearby a bars and between us slid bags, bikes, occasionally level path cut into the ford roared with the freshet, and we and skis along the girders with legs hillside and over these successive discussed our options for the crossing. dangling above the stream. The way passes and gorges. They worked and The creeping shadow line of evening seemed clear for that moment only, died as two empires collapsed around encouraged dinner, sleeping bags, and we were giddy that another puzzle them: their own and that of their and procrastination until morning. piece had reluctantly come to rest. captors. As the storm of revolution With no way across the river, we were We left China in storm and wind, Above: The evening light leaves little doubt as to the origin of the Golden Mountains’ name. Opposite: Casting long shadows in the fading light of the Altai. 22 ADVENTURE CYCLIST AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015 Novosibirsk ASIA Novosibirsk Reservoir Novoaltaysk Biysk Ust’- Kamenogorsk SIBERIAN A L RUSSIA T A I KAZAKHSTAN Lake M Lake Markakol O Zaysan U Irt N Olgii ysh R T iv e MONGOLIA r A I N Altay S hoping our way would be smoother steeper than the famed Mt. Washington in Kazakhstan. Things did not start Autoroad in New Hampshire with CHINA well. We were held at the border for a worse surface condition. Beyond Karamay Khovd seven hours as Chinese officers looked the Mramorniy Pass, we rolled over 0 75 150 300 km Bulgan Soum through the photos on our cameras the “white pasture” of Akzhailau and 0 50 100 200 mi and the Kazakh guards asked us about ascended a second pass, Tikkabak, SWITZER TRAVIS Jessica Alba, our homes (“Please tell us where conifers appeared and we and shopkeepers who asked us about one thing your state is known for.”), and caught our first glimpse of mountains our route all nodded, some pointing our plans in their illustrious country. wreathed in snow. back the way we had come, saying the All this before they informed us that In this exertion, we worried about road disappeared if we went north our visas were fake and we could not our border permits. We had arranged far enough. Beyond the great lake of enter the country — Kazakhstan does for them to be processed in February, Markakol, a park ranger pulled his jeep not issue five-year visas to Americans. but our contacts had failed us over to tell us the Austrian Road would Except that they do. Once the spectacularly and had only informed us be impassible and we wouldn’t reach immigration office in Astana finished its a few days before we entered the border the Bukhtarma. When we insisted, he three-hour lunch break, they informed zone that we did not actually have smiled and wished us good luck. We had our erstwhile captors that the rules had permission to be there. Our afternoon found, so far on this trip, that everyone changed last year is nearly always wrong, and to let us go. and the only way to You would think THE PLANKS ARE GONE, LEAVING ONLY THE know what lay ahead knowing current BENT, RUSTED GIRDERS GROANING 15 FEET was to go and have a visa rules would be ABOVE THE RUSHING CURRENT, AND WE look for ourselves. If a top priority for ENGINEERED SOLUTIONS OUR MOTHERS ARE there were any grains border guards. of truth in their advice, We followed the ENCOURAGED NOT TO ASK US ABOUT. they would reveal border fence north.