We’re a week into our shoot and are exhausted but elated. We are back in residence at the Uch Enmek Nature Park yurts having just returned from three days climbing through the wet alpine wilderness to Uch Enmek Mountain with Danil (a phenomenal guide who manages to maintain his humor while we interview him in the sleeting rain and bitter cold and, later, takes pity on the shivering Americans and builds the perfect fire to dry us out). He never shows signs of fatigue, even though he took a collective 50 pounds or so of equipment off our backs and carried it on his pack for our trek down the mountain. Back on the sunny Karakol Valley floor, our film team has met up with our friends from the U.S., Jennifer Castner and Alyson Ewald, who run the Altai Project, an NGO that works with Altai communities on sustainable energy and economic development.

Here we stand AFTER a nap and banya (hot steambath) but before the night’s shashlik (grilled lamb) and vodka. We owe a lot to Jennifer and Alyson (standing on the left) and the tight-knit group of people working on cultural, economic and environmental issues in this beautiful place. The Altai is not a place one Googles easily to find accurate and abundant information. We took time to talk to as many people as possible in the U.S. who know the country well and they introduced us to the most perspicacious and generous people in the Altai. This includes Danil (pictured center) and our friend Chagat Almashev, who runs the Fund for the Sustainable Development of the Altai, and Joanna Dobson, our wonderful translator and a British expat who has lived in Ongudai for many years (standing far right).