most cool. wish they had more of peaks in the Everest region - much potential for new route recce's from the air!

Haha - small world. SInan was on a large international ' friendship' climb in 1999 where he met Rozani, and then we paid a courtesy call on him en route to the Tien SHan in 2000 - which of course led to our 2001 climb where we guided several SIngaporean clients to the top of Ararat. I havent seen him since 2004 though... More pictures dude - when you have the time! I've been busy in France and currently in Taipei - all speaking assignments

wow - cool photos - seems like a bit of a chillyday on Ararat. Well done - enjoy the iskandar kebabs in Dogubayazit! Your pal Singapore Dave

sorry to see this arise again - it reminds me of an even greater climbing scandal - when in 1991 Tomo Cesen claimed to have climbed solo - the south Face of Lhotse - one of the 'last' Great Himalayan Problems. He was awarded the Piolet D'Or. Then one of his summit pictures was actually taken by another climber from another expedition, and doubts began to surface. Messner took back the award , and Cesen never regained a state of grace in the climbing world. I think we should still take people's claims on their word - unless there is reason to believe otherwise. And the lure of $$ is not exclusive to developed mountaineering communities, nor the issue of poor ethics. Even in tiny SIngapore, we have had people claiming to have climbed a well-reported 6000mpeak when they only reached the summit ridge, or people who have claimed big peak ascents alpine style when sherpas were used, as well as well-trodden paths of other teams..

HIya Jake! I tool had similar dreams in 1989 that were put on ice when the PKK troubles flared up in Eastern Turkey So, I just visited the town at its base in 1990 as a backpacker. BUt I did go back in 2001 as one of the first foreign groups to make an ascent of Buyuk Agri ( Ararat's main summit). We even had cellular connection up there - straight line of sigt to Dogubayazit. See http:// www.everest.org.sg and scroll down the left hand menu to the 2001 Ararat climb. There's not much water at the grassy 3900m camp at the edge of the moraine and it needs to be fetched from a distance away. The 4400m camp is bone dry but lots of campsites flattened out by the massed Turkish teams that climb in packs of 50 or more sometimes. Happy trails!