We stepped outside the yurt, looked up at The Saddle – the top of the mountain, about 800 meters above the camp. And made a decision.

“The bags could wait. The mountains could not. And neither could we.”

Five of us clicked into our skins and started up. Five, not six. Mischa’s skis were still somewhere between Istanbul and Bishkek, working their way through a lost luggage system at their own unhurried pace. So while the rest of us headed uphill, Mischa laced up his boots, climbed the small hill just above the yurts, and couldn’t do much more but watch.

The climb to The Saddle gains several hundred meters from camp. A proper afternoon effort after two days of travel. The skin track winds up through the trees first, then out onto open terrain where the valley drops away below and the Tian Shan reveals itself in stages – ridge after ridge, each one higher and more remote than the last. By the time you reach the top, endless mountain ridges stretch out around you in every direction. Each one higher and more remote than the last, disappearing into the distance further than the eye can follow.

The summit ridge itself was almost bare – scoured clean by the wind, rock and brown grass showing through where the snow had been blown away. But what we could see dropping away on every side and around us was like the menu card for the days to come. Face after face, line after line — all of it untracked, all of it waiting. We could see more lines than we had days to ride it. We stood there longer than we needed to. Taking it in. Pointing things out to each other. That face. That couloir. That ridge line. The week was suddenly very real and very full.

Then we pulled off our skins. Splitboards were clicked together. Bindings were checked. Someone said something that didn’t need to be said. We chose The Crescent as our very first line — a long, sweeping line off the ridge, named for the curved arc of the cornice at the top, a half-moon of wind-loaded snow against the sky. From the top, you could see the yurt camp far below. And on the small hill just above it, a tiny figure. We waved. And then we dropped in — our very first turns in the Heavenly Mountains. A dream finally coming true.

The upper face was firm and a little wind-worked. Lower down the snow softened and deepened. At the bottom, we looked at each other and we knew: This is the place that makes a two-day journey feel like a reasonable decision.

Back at camp, Aziz was waiting with a beer and a snack. He had watched the whole afternoon unfold – the departure, the slow figures moving up the skin track, the fresh tracks appearing on the face above. As he told us later, in all his time at the camp, he had never seen a group head straight up to the top of the mountain on arrival day. He seemed quietly impressed. We seemed quietly pleased with ourselves.

Between the beers and dinner, there was the small matter of unpacking. Six guys, a big duffel bag each, ski & splitboard gear, one shared yurt. We were not strangers to shared spaces. Alpine huts, surf hostels, vans on road trips. We knew the drill. Things go in somewhere, things come out somewhere else. And if you’re lucky you find them again before you actually need them. We cracked another beer, distributed the sleeping bags and gear with the quiet efficiency of experience and hope – and accepted that by tomorrow morning something would already be missing. It always is.

Dinner that first evening was cooked by Aziz and his wife in the kitchen yurt next door – a local dish, something warm and substantial, noodles or soup, the kind of food that tastes like it was made with both skill and care. It was excellent. As we would discover over the coming days, Aziz took his cooking seriously. So did we.

After dinner we stayed in the kitchen yurt for a while – a card game of Tutto, the schnapps and wine we had wisely purchased at the supermarket down in the valley finally making their appearance. It felt like the right moment. We were tired enough to know we should probably go to bed, and awake enough not to quite yet.

Eventually we made our way back to our yurt. And that was when we discovered just how effective a felt yurt with a burning iron stove actually is. The heat was extraordinary. The kind that builds slowly and then all at once, radiating from every wall, turning the small circular space into something close to a sauna. We had not expected this. We adjusted accordingly.

When most of us had already fallen asleep, the fire died down. And the cold came back. Slowly at first, then decisively. By morning the yurt was a different place entirely – breath visible, gear stiff, the particular silence of a high mountain camp before anyone has moved. Somewhere in the kitchen yurt, Aziz was already up. The stove in our yurt was being lit. The second day was about to begin.

The morning routine established itself the way such things do – without anyone organizing it. Aziz up first, stove lit, breakfast ready by the time the rest of us had located our boot liners and remembered where we’d put them the night before. We ate together in the kitchen yurt and talked through the day ahead. The runs had already been discussed the night before, somewhere between the card game and the last schnapps. But mornings have a way of making you want to go over it all again.

The forecast was good. In fact the forecast for the whole week was good, with only Thursday showing some possible cloud and fresh snow. Out here, that kind of news lands differently than it does at home.

A few meters from the yurt, we stopped and checked each other’s avalanche beacons – a standard routine, done without ceremony, the way we do things that matter. Beepers on, signals confirmed. Then we clicked into our skins and started up.

Only five of us again. Mischa’s replacement skis still on their way up, but nobody knew when exactly the horse with them would reach the camp. Morning, afternoon, we couldn’t say. So while the rest of us headed out, Mischa stayed behind, and waited.

For the first part, the group climbed together, following the ridge as it rose and opened up above the camp. Then, towards the top, we split. Salomon and Stefan peeled of towards Yurtzee. Pascal and Xander headed for Licht & Schatten. Two runs, two pairs, two different ways of reading the same mountain on the same morning.

Somewhere around the two-hour mark, the radio crackled. Mischa. Overly hyped, barely coherent, the happiest man at altitude in the entire Tian Shan. The skis had arrived. He was on his way up. Rene found a comfortable spot on the ridge and waited for him.

Yurtzee is a wide, open face that drops off a cornice-edged ridge – the name, a nod to the yurt camp far below, earns itself the moment you stand at the top and look down. The snow was better than expected – pockets of powder tucked into the folds of the face, soft and light where the wind hadn’t touched it. Salomon and Stefan dropped in and left two sets of tracks on an otherwise untouched canvas. The kind of turns you stop and look back at from the bottom.

A little further across the ridge, Pascal and Xander were on Licht & Schatten. The name of the ride explains itself the moment you see the face. A dramatic shadow line cuts diagonally across the slope, splitting it into two distinct worlds: the bright, wind-worked upper half and the sheltered, softer lower half where the snow had settled and stayed. 

Once Mischa caught up with Rene, the two rode down the the chute along the Eggs & Bacon.

And then, one by one – or better said – two by two – from three different directions, all six of us arrived at the bottom of the mountain. Nobody had planned it that way. It just worked out.

We stood there for a moment, comparing lines, grinning at each other in the particular way that only happens after a very good day in the mountains.

Then we rode the last mile to the yurts. Aziz already awaiting us with a late lunch.

Back at camp, the afternoon had its own rhythm. A small wooden terrace sat just outside the yurts – nothing elaborate, just enough space to set down a beer, stretch out tired legs and look up at the mountain you had just come down. We put on some music, cracked the afternoon beers and did very little else. This, it turned out, was also part of the plan.

The solar panels were already out – three of them we brought along with us ourselves, lined up to catch the last of the afternoon sun. Six people, three panels, an assortment of cameras, phones and UBooms all in need of charging before the sun set. It required a degree of coordination that nobody had anticipated. Cables were negotiated over beers. Priorities were established. The mountain could wait until morning. The batteries could not.

Later over dinner, Aziz told us about the origin of the camp — how it gets built up each autumn before the season, carried in piece by piece, and dismantled again each spring once the last group has left. We were, as it turned out, that last group. The season was ending with us.

He talked about summer in Kyrgyzstan too – a completely different world from the one we were sitting in, the high pastures green and warm, horses everywhere, the jailoo life that has defined this landscape for centuries. We listened and asked questions and slowly realized that Aziz had been quietly watching us all along — warm, attentive, unassuming – while knowing considerably more about everything than he had initially let on. In Swiss German there is a word for this: heimlifeiss. Someone who, in the most likeable and mischievous of ways, keeps their cards close to their chest. After that evening, it was clear. Aziz was a Heimlifeiss. We meant it as the highest possible compliment.