A clear view of the two summits (both dormant volcanoes) of Mount Elbrus. The West summit is higher than the East.
Mount Elbrus was an interesting climb mostly from a cultural perspective. We started the trip in St. Petersburg and ended in Moscow. We even did some obligatory vodka tasting at a local bar by our hotel in St. Petersburg. The food overall wasn’t as bad I thought, but I think I ate enough beets to last me a lifetime.
After sight-seeing in St. Petersburg, we flew to Mineral Vody and then continued to the Baksan Valley. We went on a couple of acclimatization hikes over the following two days through the Valley and also to the Cheget Observatory. It was time to move up to Elbrus base camp by the third day. In order to get to base camp, we had to take a tram to a ski lift and then the ski lift the rest of the way. All of our large duffels had to travel as “passengers" on the ski lift which was no easy feat. They showed us to the Conex boxes that would be living and dining quarters for the duration of our time on the mountain. Inside our living space we had four sets of bunk beds, a mirror and a heater. As minimalistic as it sounds, it was way better than the barrels. We had heard horror stories, not so much about the barrels themselves, but about the restroom you had to use if you stayed in the barrels. It is notorious for being one of the worst toilets anywhere in the world.
Once we settled in, we met our two Russian guides that would be working with our lead guide, Vern Tejas, to support the team. We went on an acclimatization hike leaving camp in two roped teams. Once we returned it was time for dinner. Sasha was our cook. She was really cute and sweet…always smiling. I am not sure how she put up with our group of picky eaters. The next day was another acclimatization hike that seemed to go on forever all the way to the Pastukov rocks. Then the next day was our rest day before the summit push. We had hot dogs and cabbage for dinner.
We woke up in the early hours of the morning, ate breakfast and then boarded the Sno-Cat which took us to the Pastukov rocks where we would begin our summit climb. It was estimated to be a 12-hour summit day. The weather was not ideal. The wind steadily grew stronger, the snow began blowing at us sideways and visibility decreased significantly. As bad as the weather was, there was a professional photographer running up and down Elbrus taking photos of us and other climbing teams. There are a couple of photos I posted below that were taken by him. It won’t be hard to tell which ones they are because we were basically walking in a blizzard.
We arrived at the saddle between the two peaks, dropped our packs, stuffed some water and food in our down parkas and headed off for the summit. Unfortunately, we were doomed from the very start. Not long after we left our packs in the saddle, Vern turned us around as it became crystal clear that we would not be summitting in white-out conditions. After wandering around for what seemed like hours, someone from our group walked up next to me and asked, “Does it seem to you like we are walking in circles? I think we are lost." Yep, we were lost and couldn’t find our packs and unfortunately the guide’s GPS devices kept freezing up. Vern decided to take a couple others to try and locate our packs while we remained in place. As he walked away, he shouted, “Survive!" You know, up until then I wasn’t overly concerned about us being lost. I began to wonder if I should start worrying. I can give you the really long, drawn out story later, but basically we found our packs (by accident) and found our way out to the pick up location for the Sno-Cat. We were all beat down and exhausted by the end of our 13-hour summit attempt and were grateful to get back to camp.
Two days later we were able to make a second successful summit attempt. We lucked out that the day in between summit attempts was sunny because all of our clothes were soaking wet from the first summit attempt. Our entire camp had pants, gloves, hats, jackets, etc. strewn about so they could dry out. The visibility on summit day was poor but manageable. And unfortunately, Brian wasn’t feeling well that morning so he was unable to join us. I couldn’t see a thing from the top, but at least I could say that I made it.
