We have been waiting far too long. On the slope of Elbrus the wind is tearing at our tent with everything it has. At times it seems less like wind than some wild animal ripping it apart \u2014 an unusual animal, with no paws, no claws and no teeth, throwing all its strength into shredding our tiny four-person home. In weather like this, of course, not one of us is giving a thought to climbing anything. It is a fine time for the mind to wander, though, and the first question that arrives is: why do I want to climb Elbrus? Plenty of mountaineers must ask themselves the same thing. It belongs with the questions about the meaning of a human life, about the existence of the Earth and of life upon it.<\/p>\n\n
Before that, though, there were other meetings, and none of them mattered as much as meeting Elbrus. I never dreamt of climbing Elbrus. There are people among us, certainly, who dream of standing one day on the highest point in Europe. I, on the other hand, was always afraid of that climb. The fear is the kind small children have of policemen, or accountants have of tax inspectors, or noisy sixth-formers have of the grumbling old ladies on the benches. There is no shame in being afraid of climbing a mountain. You can even show it, talk about it and think about it\u2026 That is why you buy tickets to every corner of the world except the Caucasus. Then someone’s absorbing account of a climb up Elbrus catches your eye \u2014 the dream, and the spellbinding photographs \u2014 and the thought arrives: perhaps I should, after all? But then everyday life picks you up and spins you round again, and you forget what you were thinking. It goes on that way until you suddenly find yourself at Sheremetyevo airport. There a pleasant woman’s voice politely informs you that you need to pay for your baggage. You try to work out what is going on. And then it hits you: you are going to Elbrus!!! It is happening! Doubts and questions are still turning over in your head. But then they hand you your ticket and let you through to the departure gate, and every doubt clears away like fog.<\/p>\n\n
And now you are on the aircraft. In twenty minutes it climbs to eleven kilometres. The thought comes that very soon you will need far longer than that to cover half the same distance. But then the coffee arrives, the thought disappears somewhere and you sink into the ordinary routine of a flight. When you meet a group of climbers like yourself, every one of them is a blank page. You do not know their names, you do not know where any of them has come from. Very soon you will know all of it and more; you only have to wait.<\/p>\n\n
So we swing our rucksacks onto our shoulders and plan where to spend the night. The climb itself, with our guide, comes later. In those first days the body has no time for romance. It has to survive, and for that it strictly needs 6-7 hours of sleep. Our group settles in the village of Terskol. The beauty here is beyond description\u2026 Nature seems to be calling you to enjoy it. We got to know one another over dinner. Our Elbrus guide asked each of us to say something about ourselves and about why we were here. The answers were much the same. Every one of us had come to make a long-held dream come true and climb Elbrus. One said he had heard about the climb from friends, and that was when the wish to stand on the highest point in Europe first appeared.<\/p>\n\n
So the question is still open: what do I want with Elbrus?<\/p>\n\n
Before long I sink into a deep sleep and the question is left unanswered again. This is not my first time in the mountains, but every time here is like the first. Today the thoughts that used to give me no peace have gone somewhere. There is simply no room for them. We have to walk. Our pace is not fast, but it is steady enough. We keep in mind that we have to be on time. Even with the rucksack straps digging into my shoulders, I walk easily and with pleasure. I remember walking the same way 2 years ago. My goal then was the foot of Belukha. I suffered and cursed the whole of Altai until I understood a simple truth: you just have to keep walking. Ahead there is bound to be happiness at what is happening and great satisfaction at what you have done; for now the main task is to arrive. So walk!<\/p>\n\n
Our route was not an easy one: through fallen timber, across rivers, over boulders and along cliff-side squeezes. Once we had pitched camp and walked out to Lake Akkem, we started back and suddenly saw Belukha. She was extraordinarily beautiful! It came to us that we had finally arrived, and so none of it had been for nothing. And Elbrus was still ahead. Every one of us was thinking about that long-awaited goal as we climbed. A walk up to the observatory (which stands right on the slope of Elbrus). You stand and look at the mountain, and your heart seems to want to leap out of your chest. A crowd of thoughts arrives at once. Then the guide gives the order to go down, and every one of them flies off like a butterfly. The altitude is a little over three thousand. Today I feel altitude sickness again. I had met it before in Altai and at the Mutnye Lakes below Chimtarga. But I really came to know altitude sickness while travelling in Africa. Kilimanjaro tested my endurance and my patience. The strategy I chose was to get my blow in first. Hers was a different one \u2014 the strategy of an observer. She had the advantage of home ground. I understood that I would not come back here for any money. I was lucky enough to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro. But what it cost me! The price was far too high! I took a couple of photographs to remember it by and, as it turned out later, wasted my time doing it: I left my camera behind on one of the descents. Losing it upset me, of course, but I was still glad simply to have survived.<\/p>\n\n
Half a year has passed. I am climbing Elbrus. I hope I will have the strength to cross the glacier that lies in our way. Then there will be a chance of reaching the summit. That morning Elbrus was beautiful, glowing with an unusual pink light and burning softly, like an island in an endless blue ocean. One of our companions was suffering from a headache, and from altitude sickness as well. The worst part was that he knew tomorrow would be harder still, because it meant going up, and going up, as everyone knows, is twice as hard. This is exactly where the question „Can I make it up Elbrus, or should I stay in camp?“ matters most. Yet the instructor, because of his position, has no right to a negative answer. The clients even suggested to the instructors that they leave the group and try Elbrus on their own. They were refused, and the climb went on at the same pace. The way up was hard, as expected. One of my companions asked me why, knowing all the difficulties of a journey like this, I go back to the mountains again and again. I thought for a while about how to put it well, and in the end I said that the mountains are always work. It is worth remembering that however hard the road is, something you will never forget is waiting at the end of it. I do not know whether my companion understood what I was trying to tell him, but he and his friends did reach the narzan springs. And how could you not go to them? After a walk as hard as that you come up to the spring with real pleasure, catch the thin trickle greedily with your lips and imagine it is mineral water. There is a small, comfortable caf\u00e9 here as well, standing right above the gorge. The unusual lavatory catches the eye too \u2014 nobody has seen anything quite like it. Either way it is far more appealing, for people like us, than relieving yourself in the wind. Two days later we were able to climb to 4000 metres. We made a sortie towards the side crater of Elbrus. Many people know that place as a treacherous one, because a good many young lives have ended there. To keep anyone in our group out of that sad statistic, our instructors checked and re-checked that every climber had a helmet on, crampons strapped tight and an ice axe held correctly. A good many of us had to feel for ourselves how treacherous altitude sickness is. It should be said that the people in our tent did not sleep all night. It might have looked at first glance as though we were enjoying ourselves and laughing our heads off. One of my companions, for instance, was suffering from the familiar altitude sickness. How does it show itself? The symptoms are roughly these: a high temperature, an upset stomach, general weakness. Now she was being watched constantly, by the instructors and by the rest of the group. After a while we gain height and set off towards the crater. I was walking beside one of the calmest climbers I have met. He seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever. And why hurry, really? But everyone has a pace of their own, and there is nothing to be done about that. Although, strictly speaking, a pace implies some sort of movement, and here there seemed to be none at all. The important thing now was not to stop, but to keep going, however slowly. Every one of us understood that standing on a slippery slope is far too dangerous. My companion, though, was probably not afraid of death. Elbrus was delighted by such courage.<\/p>\n\n
And then panic takes hold of me: „Why am I here?“, „What happens if the lad standing above me comes off?“ I have honestly never been so frightened in my life. And suddenly I felt sorry for my companion and told him to fasten his helmet. He answered that it was pressing on him. He did extremely well, I have to say, because he kept going despite everything. But now my companion is simply running out of strength. He is no coward! He finds his balance on the slope at once, leans forward and takes support from his ice axe. Suddenly his helmet comes off and sails over my head. I watch this brave climber try to catch a helmet that is already flying irretrievably down towards the foot of the rocks. And then I shout something like „Stand still!“ along with a string of other words that are not very pleasant to the ordinary ear. Since my father is a prosecutor, and a fisherman and a hunter besides, language like that was naturally in regular use around him. Naturally there were times when I had to reach for those words myself. My father always had something to tell, not only about his work but about fishing and hunting. He once told me this story. During a storm on the river Pechora he saw a bright patch of something he could not identify. What was odd was that the patch kept appearing and disappearing again. When my father came closer, it turned out to be no patch at all, but a man. He was fighting for his life as best he could, and when he saw a boat on the horizon the last of his strength left him and he began to go under. My father says he called to him, tried to encourage him and coaxed him every way he knew, but the man stopped fighting and only lifted his head from time to time to gulp some air before disappearing under the water again. And then my father grew afraid that the man would drown right in front of him, and he started swearing for all he was worth. He shouted things that had never even entered his head before. And it worked! The drowning man grabbed the side of the boat and my father pulled him out of the water. I do not, of course, keep that remarkable story ready for occasions like this. It was simply a coincidence. When my companion heard those words from me, he really did hold on, a moment away from a fall into the void. When we came back down from that incredible height, I was full of delight and fury at the same time. I sobbed and said that I did not need Elbrus and that I was afraid of heights. I assured my companions that I would never go anywhere again. It was a good thing that in those hard moments there were people to support me. Feeling that support, and a friendly shoulder, really does matter in moments of despair. On the eighth day we were all in the high camp. We are waiting impatiently for the weather. But every evening brings a new disappointment, and with it more sadness in the climbers‘ eyes. We remember the other world, the one where instead of mountains and clouds there are roads and houses, and the sea and sand. Each of us is thinking about what we will do when we get home. Of course we all wanted to go up as soon as possible, but sometimes it felt as though we only wanted to go up so that we could come down again and get home sooner.<\/p>\n\n
We gave one of the days over to going down into a crevasse in the glacier. Climbers often think of crevasses like that as Baba Yaga, who lives somewhere out in the back of beyond and nobody knows exactly where. It devours everyone who has lost the way \u2014 most often inexperienced tourists, or over-confident summit-baggers. For me personally, going down into a crevasse is the equivalent of flying into space. Plenty of people have been there, of course, and plenty have managed to come back. It is still terrifying. First we had to find a suitable crevasse and set up the belays and the abseil ropes. Once that was done you are inside it. The icicles here belong in a thriller. All that seems to be missing is the ominous music. The most frightening part is that the main characters of the thriller are you and your companions. It feels as though this hole has no way out. And although I had been so afraid of visiting that crevasse, the trip left me delighted. More than that, I decided to go down again with a second group of curious travellers. I badly wanted to raise the adrenaline in my blood and, of course, to hold on to the wonder of what I had seen. What I would give to set off for the summit in that frame of mind! But the weather is arguing with us. Blizzard and thunderstorm frighten us, and the wind tears at the edges of the tent. It is night, and we are sitting entirely alone on the slope of Elbrus, the highest point in Europe.<\/p>\n\n
So why are we here? Saying you will not be going up has somehow stopped being relevant. In all likelihood nobody is going up now. We spend the whole of the next day in our tent. What are we all doing in there? Playing everything that can be played in our spartan conditions. It is getting dark. The snow is falling and it feels as though it will bury us for good. Going out to relieve yourself is now the same as going down into a crevasse. The risk is at about the same level. You could easily come off into the void here, or simply freeze. At midnight one of us wakes up to make sure that the climb is cancelled this time too. Tonight we fall asleep with a particular sadness in our eyes, because we have less and less time left. Everyone’s sleep is fairly restless. It is not always possible to tell who is howling outside the tent. It might be the wind, or it might be one of the group cursing the day he decided to come here. Elbrus has most likely won this battle. We understand that we will not be going up. All that is left is to sleep and to leave. And then someone’s loud shout wakes every last one of us. The clock says six in the morning. The weather really is perfect. Today’s forecast is optimistic. We decide to go. And now we are walking. We have little water with us, because there was no time to melt any. Our food is dates. Breakfast was not enough for me. There is no time left, we have to go. I am third in our rope team. Some manage to walk faster and some find the climb hard, but hurrying anyone now is a thankless business, so we go as best we can. My mood is excellent. I walk through the deep snow and breathe the way the instructor taught us. The world is wonderful and there are only three hundred metres left! Everyone has gone on ahead, and I am very tired and sitting in the snow. I feel that I simply cannot get up. I understand that there is hardly anything left\u2026 But my arms and legs will not obey me at all. At times like this we all remember Tsoi’s life-affirming songs. We keep going. Our breathing is normal, there is no cough and no headache. But my head is in a fog and it seems there is no strength left at all. In the minutes when you are standing on the summit you have waited so long for, few people want to shout or sing. You do not even want to hug anyone. You simply stand and look into the distance, where life is going on as usual. Life is there, and here nobody lives\u2026 So why do people come here? What are they hoping to find? Perhaps someone dreams of feeling free, or simply of feeling that they matter in this world. Later on we all hugged one another, jumped about and, of course, took photographs, so that we would remember being on the highest point in Europe. Going down we did not walk, we seemed to fly. That is how you run home after a hard exam. New dreams ahead, difficulties and worries behind. Some dream of a warm sea, others want to climb a seven-thousander. As for me, I knew that in two months or so I would meet Everest. But I had no idea yet that when I got home I would hear my family begging me never to put their weak nerves through anything like it again. Of course I would promise never to go into the mountains again, not for anything. I managed to keep that promise for no more than three months \u2014 until I found myself at Lukla airport in Nepal. A new trek would open up new mountains for me, and new and astonishing gorges, valleys and summits. Everest really is extraordinarily beautiful! So far away and so far out of reach! I looked at its severe-seeming faces and breathed the air of the Himalaya. In those minutes I was thinking about how far out of reach Everest is\u2026 out of reach for most of us. Only the bravest will dare to climb it. And when you come home after meeting it, it takes a long time to recover from the wonder and the rush of adrenaline.<\/p>\n\n
My own view is that climbing Elbrus is far easier. It is sometimes compared to a prophet, or to the messenger of some god. We walk, even though the way is not easy. Why do we walk? Each of us has an answer of their own. Some walk uncomplainingly towards their dream, others are simply looking for adventure. Why did I come to the Caucasus? It is hard for me to give a single answer. But it is obvious that ever since then I have been drawn to places where the vertical outweighs the horizontal. Everything is different there. There, and only there, anyone can feel that incomparable sense of freedom. How good it is to see friends coming back from Altai. Their faces are completely different and their eyes shine in another way. Their cheeks are weather-beaten and their lips cracked. But the spark in their eyes has gone somewhere. In its place has come an understanding of why I went into the mountains. The answer is not in books or in films. They may describe it all beautifully, but you can only feel the full force and beauty of it by going to the mountains yourself. You want to come back again and again. The mountains become a second home for every climber. One journey like that is enough to love the mountains for ever.<\/p>\n\n
See the programme:<\/strong> Climbing Elbrus from the south, 9 days<\/a><\/p>\n We have been waiting far too long. On the slope of Elbrus the wind is tearing at our tent with everything it has. At times it seems less like wind than some wild animal ripping it apart \u2014 an unusual animal, with no paws, no claws and no teeth, throwing all its strength into shredding […]<\/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-37367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n