As soon as the rest of our group had come up, we ate with real appetite. Then we went to look at the mountain beauty around us and turned back. We reached camp thoroughly wet but pleased with ourselves. The whole of the next day was declared a rest day. We needed to dry everything out properly and get ready to move the camp up to three thousand eight hundred metres.<\/p>\n
On the second day we had no wish at all to sit in camp, so we all decided to go for a short walk. In a couple of hours we managed six hundred metres of ascent and covered fifteen kilometres at a run. We were lucky enough to take a lot of good photographs that day. And once again we ended up in the rain.<\/p>\n
And so to our third day in the mountains. That morning greeted us with simply superb weather. We wanted to get on with the trip. Our mood really was, as they say, a fighting one. In about two hours we had dried all our things out. We had planned to leave at ten in the morning. In my rucksack were personal kit, group equipment and food. It felt like more than thirty kilograms. And with a rucksack like that we had over a thousand metres of height to gain. The route itself is divided into four climbs. The first goes from base camp to the German airfield, and gains three hundred metres. We covered it more or less without stopping. Without stopping, but I was a little tired. After that I spent the rest of the way at the back of the group. I did not much want to trail along at the very end, of course, but there was nothing for it: you have to keep walking whether you want to or not. From the rest stop, though, I had the good fortune to leave first, and from then on I set myself the task of not falling behind again. As for the second climb, it turned out to be the longest, both in distance and in height. I managed to walk it more or less normally, in the middle of the group. That is not bad in itself, at least it was not the very end. And after that my breathing seemed to open up altogether, and I walked fast and confidently.<\/p>\n
The first to reach base camp were Alex and Vita. I was some five to seven minutes behind them. For me personally the hardest part was the last three or four hundred metres, when the base hut appeared on the horizon. That was when my body decided we had arrived at last, when in fact there was still the walk to the place where the tents were pitched.<\/p>\n
That evening really was great fun. The weather, though, gave us nothing to be pleased about. Quite the opposite: its variety was rather depressing. First a thick fog covered us and visibility disappeared completely. Then it began to drizzle, and after a while it turned to hail. Thirty minutes after that it began to snow. And that was when we fell asleep. When we got up in the night, at about two, the sky was clear. Very beautiful!<\/p>\n
On the fourth day our plan was acclimatisation. We meant to walk out to the Lenz Rocks. The morning was sunny and it was not cold at all, so we were able to leave at about nine in the morning. On my back was a summit rucksack holding a down jacket, water, a little food and a windproof. We had also brought a rope, crampons, a harness and three karabiners. There were six of us left by then, but only four brave souls set out for the Lenz Rocks. Two were unwell that day and stayed in camp. In about half an hour we came out at the crevasse zone and roped up in pairs. It took us about three hours to reach the rock, and that is already four thousand three hundred metres. We crossed two large crevasses and several small ones. The large ones, we could see, were marked with poles; the rescue service had done the work. On the way we met groups walking unroped. They were brave ones indeed, or they would not have taken the risk. We saw people on their own, too. We looked into one of those crevasses and it made us uneasy: it really is very deep. If you fall into a crevasse like that you are unlikely to make anyone passing hear you. At the turning rock we decided to ease off and take the ropes off as well. Everyone left their rucksacks there too, apart from me. And once again the instructor decided to turn back, but I did talk him into going on, since there was very little left. Luckily he agreed. We were then given an hour of climbing as we pleased: in other words, as far as each of us could get. I made a fairly brisk start and managed to run up to the lower Lenz Rocks, at about four thousand five hundred metres. When I looked back I saw one of my companions coming up behind me. Everyone else had fallen a little way back. I carried on and in the time allowed I gained another two hundred metres. There I stopped and decided to wait for the others. Ten minutes or so later the instructor arrived, and gradually the rest of the group on our Elbrus climb came up as well. The fourth of our number only managed to reach the lower Lenz Rocks. And when we came down to the high camp the instructor told us that the climb would most likely not happen at all. His view was that the group simply was not ready. To be exact, only two people were ready, and I was one of them. But as we are beginners, nobody was going to let us go, which is understandable. For me it was a shock. I tried to find other ways of getting up the mountain. In the end we talked it over and decided to rest the following day and try the mountain again the day after. In the evening the hail started again and in time turned to rain.<\/p>\n
And so to our fifth day in the mountains. Rest really is a fine thing, especially in the mountains, where there is a great deal of walking and a great deal to get past. Above all what you have to get past is yourself, your own laziness and fear. The weather, though, gave us nothing to enjoy, and in the afternoon it was appalling. So I took a book and went off to sleep. I cannot now remember the author or even the title. The only thing I do remember is that I did not care for the plot at all and that it was clumsily written. The day passed quietly and steadily enough. The instructor set our departure for midnight, which meant getting up at eleven in the evening. We went to bed at about seven, and oddly enough I even fell asleep.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Related:<\/strong> all Elbrus routes and programmes<\/a> – the classic programme from the south<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As soon as the rest of our group had come up, we ate with real appetite. Then we went to look at the mountain beauty around us and turned back. We reached camp thoroughly wet but pleased with ourselves. The whole of the next day was declared a rest day. We needed to dry everything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n