Mount Sartsapat? No, We Haven’t Seen It

• peaksam June 13, 2021October 4, 2026

June 13 was full of difficult decisions. Already in the village of Haghartsin it was clear that we would find ourselves in thick clouds, which from that moment on we will call fog, and it was here that we had to decide: to go, or to change direction. We had decided to climb Mount Sartsapat, descend to Mount Dimats (which in reality isn’t even a mountain at all), and see the Shaghot waterfall. As they say here, it’s neither one thing nor the other. We boarded the UAZ vans, heading uphill in the hope and intention that if the clouds didn’t clear, we would be satisfied with just the Shaghot waterfall. Clouds often play games, and it was possible that up above the clouds wouldn’t be static, and we would be able to carry out our program. Saying goodbye from time to time to the residents of Teghut village and the dogs tied up in the yards, we found ourselves on the mountain slopes. In the fog everything becomes more mysterious, even the slopes don’t seem to have a measure of steepness, and the animals appearing in the fog become fairytale-like. A fog hike is very hard for children, especially when, because of disorientation, they lose their sense of balance. The higher we climbed, the denser the fog became.

We came down and informed the children that we would only see the waterfall. But we didn’t even reach the waterfall. The next difficult decision was at the edge of the forest leading to the waterfall: should we continue the route through the tall grass, because of which the children were slipping, and as if that weren’t enough, the rain kept starting and stopping? Common sense won, and we decided to go back.

After coming out through the middle of the gorge leading to the waterfall, the fog lost its density for a very short time, and we were able to see the waterfall from a distance and the rocks hanging above it, from whose crack the Shaghot was falling down.

The green that day was fantastically beautiful, and when the horses emerged from the fog, we found ourselves in another reality, where everything was pleasant and calm.

We reached the village of Haghartsin, settled into the cars, and the sky opened up: an abundant rain began to fall.

Another hiking club also had to climb Sartsapat that day. The next day we learned from them that they had reached the summit, but walked in fog the whole time, and then in hail and rain too.

Above all, it should be noted that in practice the children were convinced of the difficulties of natural obstacles: walking in fog, and on wet stones and grass.

That day our group of 82 people (4 guides, 10 parents and 68 children) walked 5 km in total.