Elbrus was definitely an after thought for my 7-month long travel plan. Between getting ready for grad school and getting sick twice in one month, neither my body nor my mind was prepared. Climbing to the top of Europe sure sounds like a great way to start my year-long residence here in Europe (or till March when Brexit happens :P) but was will along enough to make it?
After saying hi and bye to the Queen like a true tourist I fly to Mineralnye Vody. Perhaps the only reason non-Russian know this town is because of the Mount Elbrus. Fighting through waves of taxi drivers, I made my way to my hotel car and rest for the night.
The next day we hit the road to Cheget Mountain(3450 m) and acclimatize there. Sitting with me were 7 Argentinians, 2 Danes, 1 Chilean, and a fellow American who will go through heaven and hell with me this climb. All with different stories and aspirations, we had one common goal: to make it up and down the top of Europe alive. Our guide, Anna, an extremely professional guide with VERY dry humour made sure we understood the logistics for the next day.
Compare to other mountains I have climbed before, one can take advantage of the chair lift around the Elbrus region to help you acclimatize. First day of acclimatization we are acclimatizing to 3100 meters on the nearby Cheget mountain. The chairlift is broken up into a few sections, so you can choose when you want to start walking. We rode up to around 2500m and walked rest of the way.
(insert chair lift picture)
Cheget mountain is surrounded by many peaks including Elbrus. The view was truly inspiring. We even witnessed an avalanche, a quick reminder that nowhere is safe when you are climbing a glacied mountain.
Not all who are on this mountain were climbers; some came with steel helmets and machine guns. Those were the border control soldiers. Cheget mountain and Elbrus are the border of Russia and Georgia. Every now and then you will see some Russian soldier sitting there casually with a machine gun!
Day 1 was relatively easy with everyone smiling and feeling top of the world. That soon was about to change with Day 2.
Day 2
Mountain climbing is hard and is always hard. The day you feel overconfident is the day you fail or die there. Day 2 was a gentle reminder of that. After pushing moving gear and cargo up to our huts at 3850m, we proceeded to climb up to 4800m to acclimatize further. Our bodies are made to naturally acclimatize 300 meters a day, not 1700 meters. Our bodies are soon going to feel that gain, that pain….
Led by Anna, we climbed and climbed. A step at a time we moved up to prettier view but thinner air.
Slowly our group began to disintegrate, some stopped entirely, but none gave up. One by one, we made it to our final acclimatization point: Pastukhov Rocks at 4800 meters. Almost as high as Mount Blanc, we reveled at the victory we gained that day.
Something else clouded our celebration, literally, the fog and black clouds moved have moved in. As we move down the mountain the weather seemed to get worse. You can barely make out some one 20 yards away. Certainly, this was bad news for our team who were about to attempt the summit the next night. Would the clouds be cleared by then?
No time to wonder further as we try to recover from the long day.
