Of Mountains, Mosques, and Horses: The story of my trip to Kyrgyzstan

A note from me to you: This is by far the longest blog post I've ever done. Go ahead and get comfy. Maybe grab a beer (or 2). I'll wait... The following is a recap of the greatest adventure I've ever been on. Start to finish. There's a lot of people I want to thank. Ryan at 40 Tribes for making the trip possible. Ty for being an awesome lead guide (and night guide haha!). Xav for being an awesome tail guide and breakfast crepe master. Nurbek for making awesome food and inviting us into your home before and after staying up at the yurt. Akim for keeping the fires going and maintaining camp for us. Gamburgers...my mom...my cab driver in Istanbul. I guess let's get into it then. The grand adventure of Patrick Pfister, and a lesson in Murphy's Law. Enjoy! Prologue I wasn't planning on traveling this year. The idea was to stay in Salt Lake for the most part and save up some money for future adventures. Funny how everything can change in an instant. It all started on a pow day at Brighton (a rare occurrence this meager winter). I was passing time on the ride up canyon, scrolling through instagram, when I came across a post from 40 Tribes Backcountry. They were offering their first week of guided skiing for half off since no one had signed up and it was less than 2 weeks away. I'd heard of 40 Tribes before, and was considering trying to do a trip with them possibly next year. That post got me thinking. But in the meantime there was finally some pow to shred in the Wasatch. I got home that night and decided to at least inquire about the trip. At the end of the day, it never hurts to ask. Besides, I figured flights would be so outrageously priced it would be a no brainer to say no. Ryan, the founder of 40 Tribes, got back to me super quick with a ton of information on the program. I checked flights, and to my surprise they were actually affordable. After a nasty bout with the flu, time was running short on making a decision. At the end of the day, I had nothing to lose. So 10 days before the trip was scheduled to begin, I booked a plane ticket to Kyrgyzstan. Chapter 1 Let me start by saying I fucking hate packing. I always wait till the last minute and always get the feeling that I forgot something important. I usually travel with locks on my luggage, mainly because I have this recurring dream that my bag will come unzipped and all my stuff will come spewing out either in the cargo hold or on the baggage carousel. Naturally, 5 minutes after being picked up by Tony Aadland to catch my flight, I convinced myself I forgot the keys for said locks. We rushed back to my place only for me to discover they were in my backpack the whole time. Classic me...Luckily I still got to the airport in time for those bastards at United Airlines to charge me $100 to check my 15lb duffel bag for an international trip I booked through a partner airline. After a 3 hour flight in that coveted middle seat in the last row in front of the crapper next to a guy with zero concept of personal space, I found the bar in the international terminal at Chicago-O'Hare, grabbed a beer and a burger and got ready for the long haul to the opposite side of the globe. 10 and a half hours to Istanbul, followed by a 5 hour layover, then a 6 hour flight to Bishkek. Chapter 2 The adventure doesn't truly begin till something goes wrong...After clearing customs, my duffel bag was the first bag on the carousel in baggage claim. "Great, my stuff made it," I thought. Just waiting on my board bag to come through. That sinking feeling started to set in when most everyone had left baggage claim. It fully set in when they shut off the carousel. My snowboard bag was lost in transit. After exiting baggage claim, sans splitboard gear, the 40 Tribes greeter helped me locate the office for Turkish Airlines. They had no clue where my bag was. Me: "How do you not know where it is? Don't you scan it at each origin and destination?" Turkish Airlines: "Yes, but we don't know where it is. It is either in Salt Lake, Chicago, or Istanbul. It's probably in Istanbul, but we won't know for a few days." Great...So there I was, in Kyrgyzstan, to go splitboarding, with no splitboard and no clue if or when my board bag would show up. They took down my information and we climbed into the car for the 6 hour drive to Karakol. Chapter 3 Being in a car in Kyrgyzstan is like being in an episode of Wacky Racers. I assume the only rule on the road is slow down for cows and horses crossing and speed up for everything else. Nor does it matter where you drive on the road. Somewhere along the way, Ryan gave me a call and we started to get a plan together. In normal circumstances, everyone skins up to the yurts from the village at the base of the mountains. It's roughly a 2 hour trip. Obviously touring wasn't an option for me, so it was time for plan b. It was decided that I would ride up to the yurts by horseback the next morning. Couple things: I've never rode a horse before. Also I'm not the biggest fan of horses. But, it's an adventure. So if I have to ride a horse, I'll ride a horse. We arrived in the village after a quick pit stop in Karakol. We met our tail guide for the trip, Xav and had our first legendary meal cooked by King Nurbek. The next morning it was go time! My horse was waiting for me out front. I had no clue what I was doing. Good thing one of my life mottos is "fake it till you make it..." First it took some instruction on how to get on the damn thing. After some quick instruction on how to get it to move, turn, and stop we were off. I'd say the horse ride went pretty well. I didn't fall off, so there's that. It was a novel experience, for sure. Here I am, in Kyrgyzstan, a place I never thought I would be, on the back of a horse in the snow with giant mountains looming in front of me. I made it up to the yurts with no problems. My ass was sore for a while after, but other than that, everything was good. When the rest of the group showed up we did a few beacon drills and discussed what to expect for the next week. I also tried to figure out where my bag was. Chapter 4 Phone service up at the yurts is spotty at best. It made it difficult for trying to get a hold of the airline. Luckily Mom came to the rescue haha! It was morning back in the US. Lucky for me, my mom doesn't mind dealing with customer service people. You can go ahead and laugh at me for asking my parents for help while I'm on the other side of the world. I don't care. I was pulling out all the stops to try and get my shit back. After a few hours I learned that my bag was left in Chicago. It would take at least 2 days to get it to the yurt. At least it wasn't lost in baggage purgatory... The next morning I hung out and waited for word on my bag while the crew went out for a tour. I gave pow surfing a go. It's super difficult, but super fun when you actually get going without falling off immediately. I played quite a few rounds of Solitaire too. Finally that afternoon I got some good news. My bag was en route to the village via taxi and would be delivered to me via horse the next morning. Game on! Chapter 5 My gear was finally back with me! I was stoked. It was time to shred! The snowpack in Kyrgyzstan is unlike anything I've ever seen. It's crazy, really. Basically everything facets out. The mountains there are very far inland. There's a very large saltwater lake, Issyk-Kul, at the base of them that provides some lake effect. But generally speaking, they don't get a lot of snow. The shallow snowpack combined with bitter cold temperatures make the snowpack a facet-growing factory. Now, I know what you're thinking, because I thought it myself. That sounds like an ominous setup. You have 2 of 3 ingredients needed for a big avalanche, bed surface and weak layer. If this were Utah it would be a horrible setup. In fact, it is the setup we started the season with, and have been dealing with ever since. It's just different in Kyrgyzstan. There aren't layers in the snowpack. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It's just facets from the surface all the way to the ground. The snowpack really has no body to it. So it feels like bottomless pow. It's a shallow snowpack, but rides deep. That being said, we did encounter some shallow wind slabs in the alpine due to a strong wind event just before we showed up. We were generally able to avoid them for most of the trip, though thanks to expert guiding by Ty Mills. Chapter 6 Yurt life was really enjoyable. It was just me and Rory in the guest yurt, so we each had plenty of room to spread out. Akim kept the fires in the stoves burning, keeping everyone warm. Nurbek made incredible dinners for us every night. He learned how to cook in the army back in the day. Now he applies his craft to feeding hungry ski bums during the 40 Tribes program. Honestly, it's the best I've ever eaten on a snowboard trip. I consistently lost at Yahtzee each night. However, I was President of Asshole for 7 rounds. Ty, if you're reading this, I'm always ready to defend my title haha! We got some pretty big tours in. The skinning was super adventurous at times. We got numerous vegetative assists and did some ski facetering (thanks for that term, Ryan). Ty and Xav did a great job putting in the skinners, even when things got "too boooshy." The touring was memorable, for sure. It was awesome getting some huge days in since that just hasn't happened for me here in Utah this season. Big thanks to Ty for leading the way! Chapter 7 The ride down to the village at the end of the week was bittersweet. It was such a fun week and it was kind of sad it was over. It was classic adventure riding all the way down, dodging logging runnels and piles of horse shit. We got back to Nurbek's house, packed up, changed clothes and had a victory beer to celebrate! The next group showed up and Tony Aadland hopped out! It was cool seeing one of my closest friends on the opposite side of the world like that. We hung out for a bit, had a beer, I sold my splitboard bindings to a dude in their crew because his broke, then it was time to say goodbye. I hopped in the truck and soon we were back in Karakol. I felt like the adventure was coming to an end. Had an awesome dinner in Karakol for basically $6 US, then we stopped at the weekly animal market the next morning on the way back to Bishkek. That was pretty wild. People were just pulling sheep out of the backs of their cars. I had my first shower in over a week at the hotel in Bishkek, which was glorious. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Bishkek. I had a couple gamburgers, which are the greatest thing ever. Found some tourist trinkets and booze to take home, then headed back to the hotel to rest for the long journey home. Chapter 8 Just when you think the adventure is over... At 3 AM, I awoke to an email from Turkish Airlines notifying me that my flight was delayed and that I needed to contact their ticketing office. At first I didn't really think much of it. I had a 4 hour layover in Istanbul, so I figured I'd be fine. I looked up my flight to see how long it was delayed, thinking it would be like 30 minutes to an hour tops. Wrong. It was delayed 6 hours. It was 3 in the morning and I had already missed my flight to New York and my flight to Salt Lake. I tried calling the Turkish office in Istanbul. No one answered. I tried calling the Turkish office in New York. No one answered. Finally, I got through on their 800 number. I explained the situation and asked if I could rebook. They told me I had to do it at the airport because they can't do anything from the call center. Seems like a waste of a call center, but whatever. I decided to still get to the airport at 5:30 (my flight's original departure time was 7:40) that way I could get my flights rebooked and be done with it. Wrong again. Since the flight wasn't leaving till 1, no one from Turkish airlines bothered to show up for work till 10. I was the first one in line when they did. At this point, I figured it would be easy. Wrong again! They couldn't rebook me in Bishkek. Their computer wouldn't allow it or something like that. They said I could stay the night in Bishkek or go to Istanbul, where they would be able to help me. I didn't want to spend another night in Bishkek, so I was off to Istanbul. Chapter 9 I landed in Istanbul 30 minutes after my flight to New York took off. I wasn't sure when or how I would get home. It was late afternoon, and I figured all the flights to the US had probably departed for the day. I went up to the Turkish customer service desk before the checkpoint to either go back into the airport or to go through customs. There were a bunch of angry Nigerians who missed their flight because they couldn't tell time. They were pretty mad at Turkish Airlines. One guy was even dragged off by the police. In their defense, the Turkish Airlines people were being incredibly rude to them, as well as everyone else who was asking for help. I get that you have to deal with shitty people all day, but maybe being shitty back to people isn't the best way to handle your job. Or maybe don't work in customer service. I was very friendly to all the employees, because getting mad won't solve anything and I just wanted to get home. Still, no one was really making an attempt to help me. After standing at the desk for an hour, basically being ignored, those 4 dudes' shifts finally ended. The new people at the desk (all female) were much friendlier and actually helpful. It took not even 15 minutes for them to get me on a flight to SLC via LAX and to line up a hotel room for me. Chapter 10 I had to go through customs and go to another Turkish Airlines desk where they would arrange a shuttle to the hotel. I was officially in Turkey. They put me up at the Courtyard Marriott in a pretty nice room with a king size bed. Hotel security was next level. They have a guard shack out front and those big metal poles that come out of the ground to prevent cars from driving in. Then every time a car wants to come in, they search underneath it for explosives. Then once inside the hotel, you put all your belongings through an x-ray machine and walk through a metal detector. Now, I'm in Istanbul. I don't know if I'll ever be back in Istanbul. It's a pretty historic city. I have just enough time to go explore if I get up early enough. Plus I figured I might as well keep the adventure rolling because it will make for a better story to tell. I decided to wake up early, get a cab and go see something cool. Why not?! Chapter 11 Tuesday, February 6. I guess it was technically Tourin' Tuesday. Only I was going to do touristy things instead of snowboarding. But the spirit remained the same: go for an adventure and have a major time constraint, this time in the form of a flight home. I went down to the hotel desk and had them call a cab for me. I figured my best bet for sight seeing was the Sultan Ahmed (Blue) Mosque and Hagia Sophia. They were both about 30 minutes from the hotel so it shouldn't be too difficult to make it there and back with plenty of time to spare, factoring in traffic, which I was told could be heavy. My cab driver was a super rad dude. I told him where I wanted to go and that I didn't have a lot of time because I had a flight to catch. He was like "no problem" and off we went. He gave me an apple, which was really nice of him to do. Then played some Turkish rap music on the radio for me. He thought it was cool that I was from the United States. He was also a badass driver, weaving in and out of traffic, giving me a high speed tour of Istanbul. It was a blast. The part of town where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are located is really cool. The streets are one lane and paved with stone. I'm sure it was kept that way for the tourists, but I'm glad they did. We parked the cab and he took me up to the big plaza between the two sites where everyone goes to pray. I felt lucky to be there in the early morning before it was overrun with people. It's not often you get a site like that to yourself. Both buildings were absolutely incredible. It's amazing how people could build things like that essentially by hand. The Hagia Sophia was built in 547. That's impressive. My cab driver took my picture in front of both sites (and I took one of him). Then we hopped back in the car and took the scenic way along the Bosphorus back to the hotel. Before I got out, he told me America is beautiful. I told him thank you and that Turkey is beautiful. We hi-fived then I got out of the cab and got back to my room to pack up my stuff for the trip home. I think the coolest thing about traveling is the people you meet. I've found that things like laughter and hi-fives are universal, even if there is a bit of a language barrier. At the end of the day, we're all just bits of old stardust hurtling through space on a rock at 67,000 miles per hour. Epilogue I made it back to the airport in time to grab a victory beer for the trip. Caught my flight to LAX, the middle seat was empty too! Both of my bags made it this time. I was wondering since they had to be re-tagged and were kept by the airline while I was in Istanbul. Customs was a breeze. I dropped off my bags for my connection, walked over to my domestic terminal, didn't have to wait in line for security and had a pretty relaxing flight back to Salt Lake. It was the smoothest part of the trip. I did have one beer explode in my duffel bag, so I guess that was a parting shot from a memorable trip! It's funny how the things that went wrong made the trip that much better. It was the coolest adventure I've ever been on. There was never a dull moment from start to finish. All I could do was laugh at my supposed misfortunes (Although I don't think they were really misfortunes at all, look at the story I get to tell now.) If you made it this far, congratulations! You have quite the attention span. This was a long one, I know. I tried to tell it in as much detail as possible. I'm sure I forgot some things, though. There you have it, the greatest story I've ever told. Thanks for reading! If you ever find me alone at the end of the bar, I'll gladly tell it again. Cheers!