It turned out that the young man had lost his way in the bad weather and become stranded. It was not really clear how this had happened, but he eventually had to spend the night at an altitude of more than five thousand metres. The good news was that he had survived at such a height. By morning, the weather had improved and he managed to descend to the beginning of the Kosaya Polka. There, he caught a snowcat and finally travelled down. You could say that he had been extraordinarily lucky: he survived an entire night at that altitude. Incidents like these served as reminders of where we were. I continued down and suddenly met some climbers from Moldova. They were heading towards the Pastukhov Rocks to acclimatise. We naturally started talking and chatted for about thirty minutes. Farther down, I encountered another group climbing upwards. They asked whether I was coming from the summit. I explained that I had fallen about twenty metres short because altitude illness had overwhelmed me. The group’s instructor then said that I was moving rather briskly for someone who had become ill at such an altitude. How could I explain why I was racing downhill so cheerfully? The answer was very simple: I was immensely happy that the mountain had decided to let me go, and that despite feeling so unwell, I was alive and in one piece. Was that not a reason to rejoice? I reached our base at around ten or eleven in the morning, where my companions welcomed me. Naturally, I was delighted to share all the emotions surging through me. Another climber arrived, and according to our established tradition, we sat down to play cards. Several hours later, two more climbers returned. They had done it. They had reached the summit. I even thought then that it truly had mattered to them in a way it did not to everyone else. The Mountain had accepted them completely, as the saying goes. There were probably reasons why those particular people needed to reach the summit. At the time, it seemed to me that the mountain set a different altitude for every person: the height each of us genuinely needed in order to understand something important. To feel completely happy, I still lacked one thing: a ride on a snowmobile. At the beginning, I had been offered a ride at a fairly high price and had declined. Eventually, however, I managed to haggle the price down and ordered the service at a more or less acceptable rate. The snowmobile arrived and off we went. The ride upwards towards the rocks was neither easy nor fast. Apparently, the lack of oxygen in these parts affected machines as well as people. Then came the descent. I felt fear and joy at the same time, and it was difficult to say which was stronger. It seemed that we were not driving but flying downhill. It felt as though the throttle had been shut all the way off, yet the slope here was extremely steep. The change in altitude even made my ears pop. It was a free fall downwards. Who needed parachutes? Surely it was enough to sit on a snowmobile and hurtle downhill with the wind. As far as I knew, there was a reason snowmobiles flew down here at full throttle: supposedly, this kept the likelihood of skidding to a minimum. In any event, I reached our base safe and sound. Everything turned out well, which could only be welcome. We devoted the rest of the day to pleasant little tasks: cooking, playing chess and simply resting without doing anything at all. Pavel still had a fever. He did have the following day in reserve for a summit attempt, but he would probably decide to abandon the idea altogether. At four, everyone went to sleep.
This was already our ninth day in the mountains. We were scheduled to move to Terskol, descending from an altitude of four thousand metres to two thousand two hundred metres. We rose at six in the morning, ate breakfast and packed our rucksacks quickly. Today we were going down. There was clearly no reason to linger at altitude; doing so would have been both unwise and dangerous. Nevertheless, we chose not to hurry and left very slowly. Unhurried packing and commemorative photographs formed our ritual of parting from the mountain, like an exceptionally long goodbye. Elbrus saw us off with clear, warm weather, crisp snow and even a complete absence of wind. We wanted to descend and, at the same time, did not. We had grown so accustomed to this place that it seemed like home to all of us. It was genuinely interesting to study photographs of the route leading to the summit. In such weather, it could be seen very clearly. On the right, the trail ran between two rocky ridges. Higher up, where the snowcat track was visible, stood the Pastukhov Rocks. That was the steep climb on which continuing upwards had been so difficult. From the Rocks, the trail made a small loop before beginning the traverse: the Kosaya Polka, from the mark at five thousand one hundred metres. We all walked as far as the Barrels. Descending with a heavy rucksack was much easier than climbing. From the Barrels to Mir station, we rode down on the chairlift, and from Mir to Azau Glade on the old cable car. Then we travelled back by car. We reached our accommodation at eleven. One member of the group felt unwell, while I felt perfectly normal. Towards evening, one of my companions announced that his soul yearned for adventure and that he wanted to take the Terskol–Ice Base route across the glacier towards the Barrels. Every one of us clutched our head. One of our female companions did everything she could to explain that he was wrong. We played the yes-or-no game, and it all became very funny. Towards evening, we finally crawled into our sleeping bags. Danila still intended to walk towards the Ice Base. Pavel wanted to go with him, which naturally made us feel more reassured.
Early in the morning, our friends ran off towards that same Ice Base. Everyone else slept for as long as they wanted. One of our companions prepared a delicious breakfast, a genuine blessing after our usual food. During the day, we first went into the forest to look for mushrooms and enjoyed walking there. We also searched for an old bridge across the Baksan River. The bridge we had used four years earlier had been washed away, although it was clear that something more substantial was being built nearby. Later, we visited Cheget Glade and decided to buy souvenirs. At about four in the afternoon, we returned to Sapira. Pavel and Yegor arrived soon afterwards. The first thing the exhausted Pavel said was that he would never go anywhere with Yegor again. Yegor, by contrast, looked much more inspired. He began exclaiming joyfully about twenty-seven kilometres. They had certainly had a proper walk; imagine doing that every day. We asked Pavel to tell us at least briefly how it had gone. Apparently, it had all begun when they met some military personnel who had something alcoholic with them. That had been their food. Apart from it, they had carried just one Snickers bar. Later, they met another no less interesting traveller, a woman. She turned out to be a champion in some sort of competition and was travelling from here by bicycle with a partner. Pavel recounted everything reasonably calmly, whereas Yegor made no attempt to hide his delight. We could only be happy for them. It was wonderful that they had enjoyed the day so much. Unlike them, we had wandered around the shops like holidaymakers and then gone into the forest, where we did little but eat raspberries and blueberries, growing fatter by the hour. In the evening, following our established tradition, we went to a café on Cheget Glade. We sampled the local cuisine and the comforts of civilisation with pleasure. We also talked a great deal that evening, about everything. It was fascinating and great fun.
The final days of a journey often contain nothing especially interesting. Departure day means saying goodbye to the mountains and gradually acclimatising once again to life on the plains. At ten in the morning, we left Sapira. We departed our cosy little town and raced along the mountain road towards our flight from Mineralnye Vody. The plane was not due to leave until three, but we deliberately set out early. We encountered every traffic jam and spent more than three hours driving to the airport, perhaps all of four. At the airport came the routine packing of our belongings and checking in our luggage. We sat in the departure lounge, then a bus carried us to the aircraft. After arriving in Moscow, we collected our luggage and went our separate ways, some by Aeroexpress and others by car. It made you want to say, ‘Welcome to the plains.’ Moscow’s traffic jams returned, yet now they barely registered; there was no particular reaction to them. The reality around me seemed somehow strange. I closed my eyes and slipped back into my true reality. Above five thousand metres, everyone meets a piercing, hostile wind. There is no idle bustle there, no hatred or anger, and no imaginary problems.