None of this prevented us from continuing, and we began climbing upwards. At times, it felt as though the ascent would truly last for ever. The reason was that only a small patch of ground could be seen ahead and behind us, and nothing else. The view created a strangely surreal impression, and the very idea of time seemed relative. Without looking at a watch, it was difficult to tell whether it was day or night. At that moment, I felt almost completely weightless, although the sensation did not last long. Before long, I heard the sound of a cable car above my head. After roughly an hour of climbing, we witnessed a true metamorphosis: the fog began to disperse, revealing rocks on either side. At the top, the cable-car station called “Stary Krugozor” became clearly visible. The view soon vanished, however, as a dense wall of fog rose from below, suddenly enveloping us and plunging us back into the same intangible space. Some time later, the fog finally withdrew and did not return, remaining somewhere below us. I had been above the clouds before, but this time the sight amazed me just as it had the first time.
When we reached the station, we decided to pitch our tent approximately ten metres from the cliff edge. We secured it firmly and went to sleep. During the night, I heard the wind growing stronger and the rain falling ever more heavily, but inside the tent it did not trouble us. One of my companions was suffering badly from a headache, while I felt absolutely wonderful. This was already our third day in the mountains. In the morning, the alarm woke us at precisely six o’clock. We looked out of the tent and realised that the gorge had disappeared. Of course, it had not gone anywhere, but it was concealed beneath beautiful clouds. The sight was truly remarkable. Before long, the clouds began gradually to clear, and the surrounding rocks were fully revealed. It was probably one of the most extraordinary moments I had ever witnessed. Soon the summits appeared on the horizon as well.
After breakfast, we packed and headed upwards to the next cable-car station, called “Mir”. Its altitude was already 3500 metres, and we reached it in roughly three hours. This section was the most difficult for me so far because my body had not yet adjusted to the thin air or the weight of a twenty-kilogram rucksack. The Mir station was not our final goal, however. We still had to gain another three hundred metres to reach the Barrels station, where the snow zone begins. A special chairlift leads there, but we decided to walk for proper acclimatisation. We left our full rucksacks in one of the local snack bars, which made the journey easier, and reached the station in just half an hour. At that moment, the summits were once again hidden behind an astonishing veil of cloud, although we could occasionally glimpse them through the mist. Some reports I had read said that the summits looked very close from there. To us, however, they still appeared distant and unconquered. At this altitude, the sun felt much hotter than it did below, making many climbers want to strip to the waist despite the surrounding snow and cold wind. Such is the paradoxical weather on Elbrus.
After an hour and a half, we decided to descend all the way down so that we could hire a stove and good plastic mountaineering boots in Terskol. Without them, continuing the climb would have been considerably more difficult. The Elbrus region had some good rental shops, one of which had been recommended to me by a good acquaintance.
We had already spent four days in the mountains, and it was hard to believe that we had covered so much ground. I did not manage to take any good photographs that day, but that was not what mattered. The important thing was that I remained full of determination and continued to live my dream of climbing Elbrus. That day, we again decided to ascend to the Barrels, but this time we used the cable car. I cannot resist saying a few words about it. Two cable cars operated on the Azau–Stary Krugozor–Mir section: an old reversible aerial tramway and a new gondola lift. The new lift was considerably more expensive, but the price was justified. Our chief concern, however, was simply getting uphill, so we chose the old lift. Interestingly, tickets were not required for the descent. We reached the Barrels without incident, pitched the tent, took everything we needed and set out on an acclimatisation hike towards the former Priyut 11 site at an altitude of 4100 metres. The refuge itself had burnt down long ago, but climbers stayed in another building nearby. It rained throughout the second half of the day, although our waterproofs protected us. The climb to the refuge took an hour and a half. There we met foreign tourists who had intended to ascend from the north but had chosen the southern slope because of bad weather. We spent a little more than an hour there, sharing our plans for the coming climb, and then began descending. Since there was nothing to do near the Barrels, we talked with our tent neighbours for a while and went to bed at around six in the evening.
We had now spent five days in the mountains, and our desire to conquer the summit of Elbrus remained unchanged. The morning, however, was far from cheerful: snow covered the tent not only outside but inside as well. I also began to feel the first signs of altitude illness. About fifteen minutes after waking, I had to struggle with nausea. The illness clearly had no intention of retreating, and I was also suffering from a headache and thoughts of descending. The cool air soon revived me, however. That day, we faced our final acclimatisation hike to the Pastukhov Rocks at an altitude of 4700 metres. We also planned to try to reach the 5000-metre mark. For the first time on the trip, we put on our down jackets. At first, the weather seemed similar to the previous day’s, but I soon realised that I was mistaken: the wind was so strong that it even slowed our ascent. Visibility left much to be desired. Surprisingly, flags stood along the path, left behind after a race held here in May. The record was only three and a half hours from Azau to the summit, a time that seemed incredible. In that visibility the flags were the only reference we had. Visibility that day was so poor that I could see only one flag ahead and one behind.
We reached the refuge quickly, but difficulties began a little higher up: we chose the wrong pace and carried too little water, which soon exhausted us. Every climb to the next flag was a struggle, and even resting did not restore our strength. Several hours later, I heard voices below. At first, I thought they were hallucinations caused by a lack of oxygen, but then the figure of a lone climber emerged from the fog.