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The main climbing in the Karavshin is split between two massive valleys, the Kara-Su and Ak-Su. Kara-Su translates into dark or black water, Ak-Su means clear or white water. The water in the Kara-Su was thick with glacial sediment, so we had to find our drinking water from spring-fed tributaries, which dried up as the weeks wore on. Our objectives were undecided until we got into the valley, but we were attracted to an east facing (read: morning sun) chunk of rock called the Yellow Wall, famous for an incident in 2000 where some well-known American climbers were taken hostage by militant rebels. Although we had a folder filled with cryptic Russian topos, we climbed one of few routes in the area that had been posted to Mountain Project and was waiting a free ascent. We were stuffed on an overhanging 5.12 corner, although I was able to do the moves on lead with a few heavy hangs.
