Crimea, Mt. Merdven-Kaya. Route via the southeast wall and south ridge — “Paskhalnaya” (2A cat.)

One day, Sitnik M.A. took a look at a new guidebook to the Crimean Mountains, brought to him by Lav­ri­nen­ko A., and was horrified — “We don’t have many 2A routes. This is a disorder! We need to fix this somehow.” That's when I came up with my project, and it was a go. I had been itching to traverse the ridge I had discovered during a photo shoot in the area, but I didn’t know how to approach it. I showed it to Mikhal Sanych, he took a look at this mess, and said, “Why don’t you try it this way?” and we gave it a shot. It seemed to work out okay. Out of all the variety of equipment, my partner and I didn’t bring the following on our ascent:

• ladders
• platforms
• jumar
• rope for handrails We had to make do with:
• a set of small- and medium-sized protection gear