Below the Barrels it got easier. The slope there is steeper and riding fast is far simpler. I began to really enjoy myself. Of course, as time went on I got more and more tired. One obvious drawback of a snowboard is that you cannot simply stop and rest – you have to sit down, and every time you get up again it costs you a fair amount of energy. Overall, though, it really was fascinating. I can say with complete confidence that this was the longest descent of my life; it took about two hours. Somehow I did make it to the finish. By then the whole group was sitting in one of the local cafes. We rested and simply enjoyed the views from the window. I have to mention that we also got to see an avalanche come down off the mountains. It was not a big one, but it was impressive all the same, and the noise it made was quite something. That, in effect, was the logical end of our trip together. Three of our companions were leaving the next day. Egor and I had about five days left, and we needed to fill them with something interesting. It turned out later that four other members of the group were staying on as well. Three of them went off to pitch a tent, while Egor and I set out to find a cheap hotel. It took a while, but we did eventually find something more or less suitable. It was right below the bottom station of the cable car and it had everything we needed. Best of all, it had water. There was no need to melt snow for it, and there was enough to wash your hair. Going to the toilet also stopped being an act of heroism.
And then, without our noticing, the ninth day of our stay in the mountains arrived. It was another rest day. We all badly wanted to go skiing. There is really only one piste here, but it is a superb one to ski. The plan fell through, though: the queue for the cable car meant waiting a whole hour, and waiting that long was out of the question for us. We did do one good deed, however, and saw the second group onto their bus. I managed to change some money there. Changing money in the Caucasus, it turns out, is a decidedly non-trivial business. After that Egor and I went off to the Narzan meadow, four kilometres from Terskol itself. There are three narzan springs there. The taste really is unusual, with a slight tang of iron. It was also quite funny to watch the tourists flinching away from me. Some just stared in horror; others said out loud how frightful I looked. In the evening we ran into one of the members of our group who had been the last to head for the summit. He was very upset at not having made it. The weather over the following days was much worse, though. We had gone up on the sixth, and we were told later that a few days after us a group of fourteen people got stuck on the saddle in bad weather.
The next day we were due to head towards Cheget. So, we had a good night’s sleep and set off for the mountain. Once there we took the cable car as high as it goes and made an attempt on the summit. We did not manage it. It suddenly started snowing, visibility dropped sharply and there was no point carrying on when you could not see anything anyway. Egor and I then decided to do a bit more riding on the Cheget pistes. It gave me no pleasure at all, though. There was too much snow, it was wet, and there were dug-out holes everywhere. It felt as though I were on a snowboard for the first time in my life. In the end we did manage to get down almost to the very bottom, even though the piste was officially closed. Once again we went to the forest for the night, to the same place we had slept on our first night. It felt as though that had been a very long time ago.
We decided to spend the days we had left on an easy walk around Nalchik. I bought a guidebook to Kabardino-Balkaria. Among other things it described a route over Saray-Gora to the Blue Lakes. As soon as we got to Nalchik, tourists set on us again, full of questions about our climb. Answering them was no trouble, of course, but we did not have much time in hand. In the end we left everything we did not need at the left-luggage office and took a minibus to a village with the wonderful name of Khasanya. Interestingly, the route up that mountain is marked with red and white blazes on the trees. In practice the blazes kept disappearing, but we did our best to pick them up again. A couple of hours in, they vanished altogether for twenty metres or so. And then the path disappeared too. A road appeared instead, and we decided to follow it. Eventually we came out at a river and turned downstream at a fork. Further on, the road crossed the river, so we had to take our boots off and wade. And then again, and again. When the river appeared in front of us for the fourth time, we lost our tempers completely. We decided to camp there and head back the next day. It was a shame we never reached the lakes, but there was nothing to be done. It drizzled on and off the whole way and the path was muddy. All in all, though, the walking was fine and the country there is unbelievably beautiful.
In the morning we headed back, and I have to say we made good time. We pitched the tent in a clearing five kilometres from Khasanya.
The next day the sun was warm enough that we could not make ourselves get off our sleeping mats for a long while. At last we managed to dry our things out. Then we went back to the bus station and took a bus from there to Mineralnye Vody, where there was another security check.
On the fourteenth day the plan was a trip to Yessentuki and Kislovodsk. Two of my companions were leaving by train at midday the following day. We decided to take the local train to Yessentuki as well – we badly wanted to drink the water. My friend still needed to change money, but as it turned out there are no exchange offices there.
Yessentuki, I should say, has a big park, a very beautiful fountain and mineral water. There is both cold and hot water. You can drink as much as you like, but you are not allowed to take it away, although the tourists do quietly fill their bottles. After that we went our separate ways. My two companions set off for Pyatigorsk, where their train left from. My flight was the next morning, so I decided to go on to Kislovodsk. Kislovodsk is a genuinely excellent town. There is a very large park with three long trails, and a mountain river. Everything really is picturesque, well kept and very beautiful. There is a lovely central boulevard and a large church, and even a local history museum in a fortress. It was a shame I never did get to see Elbrus, even though the weather that day was not bad. Here too you can drink the water or take some with you; here it is carbonate and narzan water. Walking around Kislovodsk really is something special. I honestly could not have expected the town to be so much to my liking.
All in all, that trip left me with an extraordinary amount of good feeling.