My winter climb of Elbrus

Four more travellers rode with us as far as the Azau meadow that day, all of them fellow countrymen. I remember telling our driver even then that he should turn round and drive back down. He replied that the road was far too narrow and that we would not be able to turn. The place could fairly be called perfect for an ambush. Without saying a word we watched to see what would happen next. Fortunately, after a short stop, the vehicle set off past the UAZs and drove on. Once it was clear to us that these were the security forces, we decided to drive up as well. They told us where else ambushes of this kind might be waiting for us, and we set off. And then we see a fairly empty gorge and a completely empty Tyrnyauz. We reached the Azau meadow at seven in the morning, exactly as planned. We decided to let the coach go, gathered our things near the station of the new cable car and waited for it to start running. Morning arrived almost without our noticing. People with skis began to gather, but the ticket office still did not open and showed no sign of intending to. Then we were all asked to move as far away as possible and told that nothing would be working that day. I heard talk of some sort of explosion on the cable car, but I was sure it was all untrue. It turned out later that it was true after all. A great many text messages came in on our phones, and all we did for a while was calm down our relatives and friends. And meanwhile we had to think urgently about somewhere to sleep in an overcrowded resort. I want to thank all the people who took us in for the night. The whole group went for a walk towards Stary Krugozor, and the height there is already respectable: three thousand metres. But we really were lucky, because we had someone with us who had connections among the clans of this splendid resort. Although the television was saying the resort would not be working for some time, before long the cable-car cabins began to run and we were taken up to one of the stations. And that is three and a half thousand metres. There we decided to load all our things onto a snowcat and send it up towards the Barrels, while we climbed up on our own legs. And now we are in place, which means we are at home and can get to work. From here on it is us and the beautiful Elbrus and nobody else. After that everything followed the same old pattern. One man ran about briskly and confidently and seemed proof against everything; another was frankly in a bad way but would not admit it. One of us stared open-mouthed at these majestic mountains, while another kept trying to look clever and explaining how one ought to behave. When there was a blizzard we used the navigator to make our way to Priyut 11. After a time the weather more or less settled. We managed to climb to the end of the ridge a little above the hut. It was very cold when we came out at the Pastukhov Rocks. It is worth saying that there had been hard frosts before we arrived, frosts that were unnatural even for Elbrus in winter. We still hoped, though, that all this misery would soon be over and that we would get to the summit.
I can say without the slightest exaggeration that I have come to love Elbrus deeply. Like bread, it never palls. If a year goes by and I have not been here, I begin to feel the pull, and I miss it badly.
And it is Elbrus in winter in particular that impresses me. It is a special place. Those huge fields of ice and snow. Everything is clean and honest. It is astonishingly fresh and genuinely cold. But at the same time there are no crowds, and there is no dirt. There are also the Barrels, which have not changed in twenty years. And there is an enormous amount of snow. The so-called bottle ice seems to be higher than the rocks. And there is that beautiful sunrise, on which all our hopes rest. And there is the long Kosaya Polka traverse, which seems to grow a little longer every year. And there is the saddle, from which it is shameful to turn back, so you have to go on. And there are those beautiful summits.
I love walking like that, with headphones on and without stopping, and doing it for hours on end. You walk like a robot. The movement becomes a background to your thoughts, and to feelings that are hard to describe. Your friends are beside you and yet you are alone. You and this giant Elbrus. The day after we climbed to the Pastukhov Rocks we all set off unhurriedly for the end of the ridge. It was a sort of half rest day.
Some of my companions and I were also able to walk out to what is called the motorcycle traverse. It did not come easily. After that we decided to have a proper rest day and went off towards the Mir station, although we were not very lucky, because the museum was shut and the bar was not open. Then we went back again.
And then the day of our climb finally came, the time all of this had been started for. It is interesting that half of our lads had been in mountains like these before. I frankly envied them. And this is only the beginning of our road. Some will give up later on and some will stay in the sport. There is nothing new in that, it has all happened before. And yet everyone has a first time of their own, and every time it is genuinely real. From the evening onwards everyone was extraordinarily serious, so my attempts at joking came to nothing.
On the way to the Pastukhov Rocks I tried to let nobody go ahead. Everyone walked at the same pace and we came out at the rocks together and evenly. After that, of course, everyone went at their own rate. In time some began to feel worse, and one turned back down altogether. Most of the climbers, though, went on. We had set off just after three, and I was even afraid we would freeze before sunrise and turn back. The frost at that point was about fifteen to twenty degrees. But there was no wind, and that was what saved us. Once the sun came out it stopped being frightening at all. On the acclimatisation walks, by contrast, somebody was always turning back earlier than the others because of their hands or feet. In this expedition it was excellent, good-quality clothing from a well-known maker that saved us from the hard cold, and the jackets and the various accessories in particular. The jackets were made to order and many of them carried their owner’s name.
That was when I took the final decision that we would go together, in spite of the differences in fitness and in how people felt. There were plenty of experienced lads among us, but that was the decision we made at the time. It meant that the fastest had to wait for the rest, and only the absence of a strong wind allowed us to stand conditions like those. On the day of our climb at least fifteen other people decided to go up the mountain. And we were the only ones walking towards the Barrels on our own legs. Everyone else went either by snowcat or by snowmobile. To be honest, I still do not understand why people use snowcats and snowmobiles on the mountain, since they came for a climb and not simply for a stroll.
Almost all of our lads reached the summit that day. Only Nikolai was unwell and decided to give up the idea of climbing to the top of Elbrus. It turned out to be a strange form of altitude sickness. All through the acclimatisation the height had no effect on him whatever and he always felt very well. It was only when we were about to go for the summit that it came down on him completely. There was a kind of euphoria, a loss of co-ordination and badly swollen hands. One of our instructors then walked them down to the Pastukhov Rocks. Those were the results our Elbrus climb ended with. And after that came the descent into the gorge.
What did I think back on after that climb? Most of all, of course, about the extraordinary landscapes I was lucky enough to see. And I often think about the lads I climbed to the summit of Elbrus with. None of it will ever leave me, and it will certainly stay with me for life.