Alpinist Boyan Petrov who became the first Bulgarian who conqueredMount Manaslu (8163 meters) returned to this country several days ago. As always, Boyan did that without oxygen and sherpas. I do not want to use any oxygen and the help of sherpas. When you reach an altitude of 8,000 meters and start using oxygen, it feels like you are 1,000 meters lower. In my view, if you cheat yourself, you can not feel the sport, Boyan told Radio Bulgaria. Boyan Petrov is a real phenomenon in Bulgaria’s alpinism. He was born in 1973 in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia. Boyan graduated in zoology. When he was still at school, he started to participate in various cave expeditions. In 1990 Boyan officially started to deal with alpinism after he climbed couple two and three thousand meter-high peaks in Tian Shan Mountain.
In 2000 Boyan was diagnosed with diabetes and the doctors told him categorically that he had to forget about alpinism and cave expeditions and that he should beware his illness. In the beginning, I was somewhat worried, but the month I learnt I had diabetes I went to a small cave expedition in Romania, where I saw that it was really difficult to be part of such trips when you are suffering from that severe illness and you have to shoot insulin five times a day and constantly measure your blood sugar. However, I realized that everything is possible. Three months later I climbed Mount Ararat in Turkey (5,136 meters) and started to gain courage. I managed to cope with my illness, Boyan Petrov recalls.
So far, Boyan has climbed 18 peaks which rise at an altitude of over 5,000 meters above sea level. He also conquered 5 peaks which rise at 8,000 meters or above - Gasherbrum I, Kangchenjunga, Broad Peak, K2 and Manaslu. In 2014 Boyan became the first Bulgarian alpinist who climbed 3 peaks that rise at an altitude of eight thousand meters or more in 100 days only and set a world record after he managed to climb two of them - Broad Peak and K2 in 8 days only. Boyan brings to Bulgaria after every expedition various unknown bugs and donates them to the National Museum of Natural History in Sofia, where he actually works. One would probably think that if people want to become alpinists they must be hotspurs. However, Boyan does not agree with that. One does not have to be a hot spur, in order to become an alpinist. However, you have to be smart, well-trained and prepared and have great powers of endurance.
Here is what Boyan Petrov told Radio Bulgaria about his expedition he just returned from:
“This was the shortest expedition to a mount which rises at an altitude of over 8,000 meters. It was exactly 31 days from the moment I left Sofia to the time I returned back. It took me 20 days to reach the peak from the base camp. The climbing went extremely quick, because this autumn the weather conditions were much better than usual. The previous six Bulgarian expeditions faced very harsh conditions when our alpinists tried to conquer that peak. I watched videos of three of the expeditions - all camps were covered in snow and that was the reason for their failure. We were lucky that there was no snow. A total of 150-160 foreign alpinists and sherpas were trying to climb the peak this year. Three trekking agencies made mistakes when they were planning the attack of the peak and their clients were disappointed. It is still a mystery why such big agencies which have 8 to 10 successful attempts attacked the peak earlier. Their clients paid USD 20,000 for those expeditions, which is three times more than the money I paid to climb Manaslu. The route to the mount is not that difficult. There is a difficult part between the first and the second camp, but I managed to cover that distance relatively quick. I made a new experiment during the expedition to the mount - I climbed camps 2 and 3 from the base camp and later returned to sleep at the base camp. Thus, I did not have to carry a lot of luggage with me. I had one tent and one primus only, unlike others who carried many tents and equipment on themselves"
“The Manaslu camps are situated approximately 1 to 2 kilometers from each other at a displacement of nearly 600 meters, Boyan Petrov went on to say. I was making ascents and descents, in order to get used to the weather conditions and I was ready to attack the peak twelve or thirteen days after I started the expedition. On September 28 I set up camp 3. The weather was extremely windy, but suddenly the wind stopped. The weather was perfect during the following three days, which happens extremely rarely at Manaslu.”
Boyan Petrov has already started thinking about the next two peaks he is planning to conquer in March 2016. Meanwhile, he is preparing an exhibition, where he is to present stones brought from all expeditions.
English version: Kostadin Atanasov
Photos: personal library of Boyan Petrov
