Hello everyone. Today a new journey begins for us: a walking trip through the foothills of Elbrus. We came to the village at the foot of Elbrus on motorbikes from Moscow and made up a small group of four. Friends will be joining us soon, so there will be more of us. Right now we are going through our things and realising that everything we brought on the bikes will somehow have to fit into small rucksacks. The packing is finished, and now we get on the bikes to ride to the hire shop and pick up the equipment we do not have. You can find almost anything you need at the hire shop. Sasha, one of our group, looks slightly lost: he does not know what to take, and he has also forgotten the most important tool of all, a bowl to eat from, which has visibly upset him. And will our faithful dog be coming with us? Of course. Who else is going to protect us from bears?<\/p>\n\n
And so our route began. We have already walked about a kilometre and a half, and I can say that the walk turned out to be nothing like as easy as it looked. Sasha is trying to send his last messages by phone, because there will be no signal for the next three days. The rest are trying to write some sort of farewell, but it does not seem to be simple. The guide is chivvying us along and asking us to move faster, but that is not always easy, especially when breathing is hard. The main group left earlier in the morning, incidentally, so we still have to catch them up. It starts to rain, and we put a raincoat on the dog. Our first night has passed; happily there was no rain, but climbing out of the tent in the morning was the last thing we wanted. We are up at 6 in the morning, and by 8 we have to be on our way again. Everything around is wet, our things and our rucksacks alike.<\/p>\n\n
I slept excellently, if not for long enough. The only drawback was that we had to pitch the tent on a slope, so at night, when you turn over, you find yourself in an awkward position, as though sliding downhill. But that is part of the experience: you learn to move less in your sleep so as not to slide. We went on this climb with an organised tour through a company we found on the internet. There are plenty of companies running trips like these, and we chose this one in the autumn, which gave us an early-booking discount, and the tour came to 24 thousand roubles. That sum included a transfer from Mineralnye Vody airport<\/a> to the village, guiding, tent hire and full catering. We paid extra for insurance covering helicopter evacuation, for hiring the equipment we were missing and for the travel around Mineralnye Vody.<\/p>\n\n And so, metre by metre, we move forward. The only ones who are not finding it hard right now are our guide Anton and the dog, trotting cheerfully alongside. Zara, our dog, has walked this route about forty times, but has never been to the summit of Elbrus itself. She usually goes as far as a certain point and then turns back. We fell slightly behind the main group, because going on was simply unbearable. At one point we made an unofficial stop, for which we were of course told off by the guide, but we did manage to get our breath back.<\/p>\n\n Today our camp is pitched on the shore of a mountain lake, Syltrankel. The place is genuinely wonderful, so beautiful that you feel bad even walking on this ground. The lake lies at 3100 metres and is covered in ice almost all year round. In July the water temperature there is only about 4 degrees, but that did not stop many of us: some went in, and although there were not many reasons to do it \u2014 no shower, or simply somebody else’s example \u2014 we all shot out of the water the moment we went under. Sadly the footage of the swim and much else of interest did not survive, because one of the memory cards with the main material was lost.<\/p>\n\n Now we are off on a short out-and-back walk, leaving our rucksacks in camp. You cannot imagine what a relief that is. The way to the lake is marked, so you can walk here on your own from the village of Verkhny Baksan. Cloud has come down, or perhaps it is fog, it is hard to tell. It has turned very cold, and the high humidity gets into your bones. Walk even a short way from camp and you can already see almost nothing. Even the brightly coloured tents disappear within a few metres. We went literally 20 metres from camp and visibility was already close to zero. Supper in conditions like that was not easy either, of course.<\/p>\n\n This morning we woke up and saw that the sun had finally come out, and the whole world around us was transformed. But the walks without rucksacks are over: breakfast, and back on the road. We have a climb of Elbrus from the south side planned, and before that we need to acclimatise. The first stage is out-and-back routes at about 3300 to 3500 metres. We have already spent several nights at that height, and we are now preparing for the next stage of acclimatisation at 4000 metres. The weather was not very kind \u2014 cloudy and foggy \u2014 so the views were shut off and all we could see was the boots of the person in front.<\/p>\n\n Yesterday evening we checked into a campsite right on the bank of the river. You can do your washing here and charge your phone, though everything costs extra. A shower is 200 roubles, and washing is 30 to 50 roubles. We have more and more things with every day, and now they will all have to be carried up. We are consoled a little by the fact that a lift will take us part of the way.<\/p>\n\n Today we stopped in small huts. Sasha is pleased that he does not have to sleep in a tent at last. There is a small kitchen with a table here, and we even lugged a watermelon up. It was not easy to carry, but it tasted worth it.<\/p>\n\n After that we went up to Priyut 11 at 4480 metres, covering a kilometre and gaining 150 metres in 43 minutes. Tomorrow we go to the Pastukhov Rocks (4700 metres), and today we are practising walking in crampons, the special equipment for moving on ice. Sun protection at these heights is critically important, and besides your face you need to put cream on your ears, your lips and even your nostrils, because the snow reflects the sunlight and without protection you can burn.<\/p>\n\n We reached the Pastukhov Rocks at 4700 metres, but the climb was not easy, although the views around are simply extraordinary. While we were resting and acclimatising, a thunderstorm began. We had to hurry down so as not to be caught in it. The weather turned sharply, snow began to fall and it became very cold, although the morning had been sunny and calm.<\/p>\n\n Tomorrow is our rest day before the summit push. One of the group has a birthday, and we decided to make a \u201ctrekkers’ cake\u201d out of biscuits, condensed milk and chocolate. What we got was a rich, sweet and very tasty cake, which we carried outside to set. A proper climbers’ cake, which we even buried in the snow to cool.<\/p>\n\n The only stable network on Elbrus is MTS, so we came prepared and took exactly that network, which works better than the others. There are showers at the campsite, but at 700 roubles a shower the cost is certainly noticeable. You also need to know about snowcats, the special machines that help you get higher and shorten the way considerably, but their services are expensive: the ride up costs 10 thousand roubles a person and the ride down 5 thousand. Many people only find this out when they are there and realise that 12 hours of climbing is a hard trial.<\/p>\n\n This morning we began our final climb. We woke in the night, at 2, so as to start the summit push at 5:00 from 5100 metres. Two of our team decided to walk from the very bottom, and we saw them off. Our group climbed to the Kasay shelf, and the two who had set out from below had already got there by that time. Step by step we moved towards our goal; breathing became hard, but we did not give up.<\/p>\n\n At 5300 metres we made a short stop. Sasha has now developed a fondness for Coca-Cola as a source of energy: a mouthful of the refreshing drink brought back his strength and his spirits. Our climb took 4.5 hours, and the two from below spent about 8 hours on it. It was one of the hardest sections, and when we reached the summit we were filled with boundless joy and elation. Possibly that was partly the lack of oxygen, but we were happy.<\/p>\n\n Now we had to get down, and although the descent is not simple either, we managed it. The mountains are a harsh test of endurance, but also an extraordinary adventure. Our climb of Elbrus had come to an end: part of the team reached the summit, part of it stopped, but all of us gained a unique experience, a sea of emotion and memories that are hard to convey. That is how our trip to Elbrus ended.<\/p>\n\n We started back, tired but with a feeling of deep satisfaction. Coming down was no less hard than going up: our legs tired and every step took effort. At one point a blizzard began again and visibility dropped almost to zero. We had to watch the route markers carefully and stay close together. Fog came down and the weather worsened sharply, as it often does in the mountains. But despite all the difficulties we knew there was very little left, and that helped us hold on. When we got to the lower base we were filled with contradictory feelings: relief, joy that the descent was over, and a slight sadness that the trip had ended.<\/p>\n\n We spent our last nights at the campsite, where we were finally able to sleep properly. We had our final supper there too, at which everyone shared their thoughts about the trip, their memories and the funny moments that had happened along the way. This trip to Elbrus was not just a physical test but a deep inner change. We all came to the finish as different people, with new knowledge and a new understanding of ourselves, of what we are capable of and of the strength of friendship. The mountains teach respect for nature, patience and the ability to see the beauty around you.<\/p>\n\n Already on the way back in Moscow, pictures of our journey were still going through my head: cold mountain summits, quiet dawns in camp, spellbinding sunsets, the fog in which the tents were barely visible, and the moments when we came through difficulties together, feeling each other’s support. This trip will stay in our memory for life, as one of the brightest, strongest and most vivid adventures.<\/p>\n\n All our Elbrus tours<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n See the programme:<\/strong> Climbing Elbrus from the south, 9 days<\/a><\/p>\n Hello everyone. Today a new journey begins for us: a walking trip through the foothills of Elbrus. We came to the village at the foot of Elbrus on motorbikes from Moscow and made up a small group of four. Friends will be joining us soon, so there will be more of us. Right now we […]<\/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-37422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat to read next<\/h2>\n