15.05.2015
Between happiness and crying...
Bernd Amann (Germany) and Marco Jaun (Switzerland) were on the Red Fox Elbrus Race this year. They aren't professional skyrunners and do this as a hobby. It's a possibility to see beautiful places and - especially for Bernd - to have FUN.
Marco Jaun. Photo by Oleg Chegodaev
Marco
I do not too much sport but I work a lot of time in the nature. I'm a forester in Swiss Alps and this is my sport. The place I live and work in is in the middle of Swiss, there are a lot of beautiful mountains but altitude is not so high, 1000-2000 m.
I live in Jungfrau region, in the Bernese Oberland near “The Top of Europe". We have three peaks which are known all over the world, and there is a yearly marathon in this area.
There are a lot of interesting places all over the world and I do trekking in different mountains. I've been in Africa, America and Canada, ascended Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua. But before this event I have never been to Russia. Bernd told me about this race on Elbrus and I thought: “I'll do that". So, more or less, it became a reason to come here. It's a new experience and new feelings for me.
Bernd Amann. Photo by Oleg Chegodaev
Bernd
I've started doing sports with gliding. I was 14 at that time. Then I got license of a glider pilot and began to participate in competitions. However, later I had lot things to do, working and studying, so I hadn't enough time to do sport. I used to fly to Namibia but it was already non-professional level.
At the time I was at the university I went gliding in Argentina. It was a small glider for two people but the altitude was about 9000 m and we used oxygen masks. It takes you less than an hour to climb from 1400 m to 8000-9000 m so you need oxygen.
While gliding you should watch the weather, if everything is OK, like you do while mountaineering. The air moves in waves which you can't see normally. But when you're, for example, above the lake you can see this and make decisions on the basis of it. You can follow these air streams.
Many teams go on Aconcagua to train and to get used to altitude. And later when I graduated from the university I decided to try to ascend mountains. The first mountain was directly the Mont Blanc, just to have fun. My brother said: “You're experienced in the altitude and what do you think about climbing?" And then, in December of the same year I climbed to Kilimanjaro, it was by my father's 60th birthday. And last year Marco and I were on Aconcagua.
It's the same like here. They say: “we cannot go to Mont Blanc, it's your first mountain" I ask, if there was a normal organization, and they say, I wasn't experienced enough to go to the Mont Blanc. But if you take a private guy, you can do everything. The same problem is with the race here. When I say that I want to go to Elbrus, they say: “you have no experience in that". But there are 200 of other guys starting, this is a race and the organization is professional here. So I understand that there is a risk but I can do it. Why not participate and go up to the top.
My sport is gliding, and I will be never good in sports like that. But you have this event and I think a lot of people only train for it. They train small things, they go for money… They train too much. It's not my situation, I thought just to go to the event, of course not to the front. To be on the place where you don't disturb the other people and just to complete it, to be part of the event. It's because there is more fun.
It's like today in the morning. We were asked if we want to go to the front and we said “no". We had 30 and 21 numbers so we could go to the first line, but there were athletes who had been training really hard for that, it's their sport and they want to win, so it's not our job to disturb them. We know that we're not fast so we placed in the middle and got fun that way.
Bernd and Marco let the top athletes start the Elbrus Vertical Kilometer® from the front line, so they started and finished in the middle. As they said, the race was for them fun and pleasure.
Bernd and Marco on the route of Elbrus Vertical Kilometer®. Photo by Aigul Lotfullina
Bernd
It's important just to have fun like to go here for a competition. I'm told sometimes: “Bernd, you do a lot of sports, you do diving and mountain-running, hey, why is it so?" And I say: “It's not a problem, my normal sport is gliding, I'll never forget it. And when I want to have a record I can only make it in my sport. But it's not a reason not to have fun on other sports".
Marco and Bernd planned to start the Elbrus Vertical SkyMarathon® from the “barrels" but they had no harness which was in the equipment list for the distance. During the evening briefing they learned that there were fixed ropes and that the judges would make those, who hadn't a harness, come back. It was too late to go back to the Azau clearing, so through law-abidingness they haven't start at all.
Bernd told later what happened with him at the beginning of this trip to Russia. He have nearly missed his flight and came running when the ladder had already been off. “Such things happen, he said, when you go somewhere not as a professional athlete who prepares a lot and calculates every minute. You go just for fun and you can miss some information, all can be muddled".
Bernd reckons that all was perfect later, though. In spite of the fact Marco and he participated only in the Vertical Kilometer®, they ascended Elbrus just after the judges had finished placing flags. Like all the Red Fox Elbrus Race participants they made this ascension for acclimatization.
Marco Jaun on the route of Elbrus Vertical Kilometer®. Photo by Aigul Lotfullina
Marco shared his impressions briefly:
It was perfect to go to the summit. The weather was beautiful.
Bernd told us more:
We were late there on the top, about two o'clock. The problem was that other groups behind us turned because they saw some fog. It wasn't much. Then we saw one group, the last group that was on the way to the top and we had to catch up. We knew that if we hadn't catch up, we wouldn't have reached the summit. We didn't know exactly the way. Marco caught up first to get all the information and then they stayed there on the summit and I thought: “OK, I'm not so fast; I'm not so acclimatized because I live at the altitude of about 50 m above the sea level".
You can imagine: the feeling was perfect. There was a place directly after the rope where you cannot see the group, when you are behind. When you think you cannot reach the top, and then you move further and see them, and see the top… You think: “OK then, they haven't reached the top, you'll make it".
On the summit I was alone because Marco followed the group. All was OK, it was a perfect feeling: you're alone, you're completely tired and you think: “OK, the group is going now but it's only 5 minutes to recatch up, and it's not a problem". When you're at the end of power and you're on the top yet, it's a perfect feeling. It's between happiness and crying.
Bernd Amann, editor in Chief Red Fox magazine Irina Morozova and Marco Jaun Bernd
As a conclusion, both Bernd and Marco said, that they were satisfied with the participation in Red Fox Elbrus Race. Bernd assured us that next year he would probably come again. Of course, it would also for pleasure and FUN!
Interview by: Irina Morozova, Angelika Lebed' (Red Fox magazine)
Marco Jaun. Photo by Oleg Chegodaev
Marco
I do not too much sport but I work a lot of time in the nature. I'm a forester in Swiss Alps and this is my sport. The place I live and work in is in the middle of Swiss, there are a lot of beautiful mountains but altitude is not so high, 1000-2000 m.
I live in Jungfrau region, in the Bernese Oberland near “The Top of Europe". We have three peaks which are known all over the world, and there is a yearly marathon in this area.
There are a lot of interesting places all over the world and I do trekking in different mountains. I've been in Africa, America and Canada, ascended Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua. But before this event I have never been to Russia. Bernd told me about this race on Elbrus and I thought: “I'll do that". So, more or less, it became a reason to come here. It's a new experience and new feelings for me.
Bernd Amann. Photo by Oleg Chegodaev
Bernd
I've started doing sports with gliding. I was 14 at that time. Then I got license of a glider pilot and began to participate in competitions. However, later I had lot things to do, working and studying, so I hadn't enough time to do sport. I used to fly to Namibia but it was already non-professional level.
At the time I was at the university I went gliding in Argentina. It was a small glider for two people but the altitude was about 9000 m and we used oxygen masks. It takes you less than an hour to climb from 1400 m to 8000-9000 m so you need oxygen.
While gliding you should watch the weather, if everything is OK, like you do while mountaineering. The air moves in waves which you can't see normally. But when you're, for example, above the lake you can see this and make decisions on the basis of it. You can follow these air streams.
Many teams go on Aconcagua to train and to get used to altitude. And later when I graduated from the university I decided to try to ascend mountains. The first mountain was directly the Mont Blanc, just to have fun. My brother said: “You're experienced in the altitude and what do you think about climbing?" And then, in December of the same year I climbed to Kilimanjaro, it was by my father's 60th birthday. And last year Marco and I were on Aconcagua.
It's the same like here. They say: “we cannot go to Mont Blanc, it's your first mountain" I ask, if there was a normal organization, and they say, I wasn't experienced enough to go to the Mont Blanc. But if you take a private guy, you can do everything. The same problem is with the race here. When I say that I want to go to Elbrus, they say: “you have no experience in that". But there are 200 of other guys starting, this is a race and the organization is professional here. So I understand that there is a risk but I can do it. Why not participate and go up to the top.
My sport is gliding, and I will be never good in sports like that. But you have this event and I think a lot of people only train for it. They train small things, they go for money… They train too much. It's not my situation, I thought just to go to the event, of course not to the front. To be on the place where you don't disturb the other people and just to complete it, to be part of the event. It's because there is more fun.
It's like today in the morning. We were asked if we want to go to the front and we said “no". We had 30 and 21 numbers so we could go to the first line, but there were athletes who had been training really hard for that, it's their sport and they want to win, so it's not our job to disturb them. We know that we're not fast so we placed in the middle and got fun that way.
Bernd and Marco let the top athletes start the Elbrus Vertical Kilometer® from the front line, so they started and finished in the middle. As they said, the race was for them fun and pleasure.
Bernd and Marco on the route of Elbrus Vertical Kilometer®. Photo by Aigul Lotfullina
Bernd
It's important just to have fun like to go here for a competition. I'm told sometimes: “Bernd, you do a lot of sports, you do diving and mountain-running, hey, why is it so?" And I say: “It's not a problem, my normal sport is gliding, I'll never forget it. And when I want to have a record I can only make it in my sport. But it's not a reason not to have fun on other sports".
Marco and Bernd planned to start the Elbrus Vertical SkyMarathon® from the “barrels" but they had no harness which was in the equipment list for the distance. During the evening briefing they learned that there were fixed ropes and that the judges would make those, who hadn't a harness, come back. It was too late to go back to the Azau clearing, so through law-abidingness they haven't start at all.
Bernd told later what happened with him at the beginning of this trip to Russia. He have nearly missed his flight and came running when the ladder had already been off. “Such things happen, he said, when you go somewhere not as a professional athlete who prepares a lot and calculates every minute. You go just for fun and you can miss some information, all can be muddled".
Bernd reckons that all was perfect later, though. In spite of the fact Marco and he participated only in the Vertical Kilometer®, they ascended Elbrus just after the judges had finished placing flags. Like all the Red Fox Elbrus Race participants they made this ascension for acclimatization.
Marco Jaun on the route of Elbrus Vertical Kilometer®. Photo by Aigul Lotfullina
Marco shared his impressions briefly:
It was perfect to go to the summit. The weather was beautiful.
Bernd told us more:
We were late there on the top, about two o'clock. The problem was that other groups behind us turned because they saw some fog. It wasn't much. Then we saw one group, the last group that was on the way to the top and we had to catch up. We knew that if we hadn't catch up, we wouldn't have reached the summit. We didn't know exactly the way. Marco caught up first to get all the information and then they stayed there on the summit and I thought: “OK, I'm not so fast; I'm not so acclimatized because I live at the altitude of about 50 m above the sea level".
You can imagine: the feeling was perfect. There was a place directly after the rope where you cannot see the group, when you are behind. When you think you cannot reach the top, and then you move further and see them, and see the top… You think: “OK then, they haven't reached the top, you'll make it".
On the summit I was alone because Marco followed the group. All was OK, it was a perfect feeling: you're alone, you're completely tired and you think: “OK, the group is going now but it's only 5 minutes to recatch up, and it's not a problem". When you're at the end of power and you're on the top yet, it's a perfect feeling. It's between happiness and crying.
Bernd Amann, editor in Chief Red Fox magazine Irina Morozova and Marco Jaun Bernd
As a conclusion, both Bernd and Marco said, that they were satisfied with the participation in Red Fox Elbrus Race. Bernd assured us that next year he would probably come again. Of course, it would also for pleasure and FUN!
Interview by: Irina Morozova, Angelika Lebed' (Red Fox magazine)
Мы принимаем:
