This post is the first in a two-part series where I recap climbs from the past that was never posted. The first installment is going back exactly 3 years ago to 2015 where I ventured alone to Russia to scale Mt. Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe, and one of the Seven Summits. They are posted in the present so they do not get buried under previous posts.
June 27, 2015
This rich, prep-school kid next to me with his Rolex Submariner is nice enough, but he wont shut up about vacation homes, collecting cars, and the string of hotels his daddy owns back in Mother Russia. Luckily, I am on the nicest flight of my life from London to Moscow - Business-class seats that are wide and recline, and I sleep the whole way there, a nice rest after toting the kids around London for the past week. My reward is 12 days alone in an attempt to tick off my 2nd of the 7 Summits: Mt. Elbrus in Russia.
The bliss is over when I touch down and have to make my way across the city from one airport to another. On my puddle jumper from Moscow to Mineralnye Vody, all of the announcements are in Russian. A mighty cheer goes up upon landing and I think, I have heard this on risky landings but on a nice day? Perhaps a safe landing is not a foregone expectation of purchasing a flight ticket in Russia, or maybe the landing gear was broken, how am I supposed to know?
I load into a van with a group (unsure if they are climbing partners as I cannot understand them) and travel 3 hours north to Elbrus region. The drive is flat save a few mining piles. I arrive and thankfully find a single room waiting for me (the rest have doubles) as no one else speaks English. They try to engage me, the obvious foreigner, in a bit of chit chat but it soon dies out and they return to themselves, which suits me just fine. I prefer to be left alone and focus on my goal. I do need to walk across the street to rent some gear as my down jacket is in the USA and my crampons and trekking poles are not up for the task anymore. Returning I try to call home but it won't connect and the power is out. My shower will have to wait.
The next day we took a chairlift up to 2500m for an acclimatization hike. It was immediately clear many people had never done this. One guy asked, "What are crampons?" and I had to show another how to use trekking poles. We went up very slowly and stopping too often for too long. The weather went from fair to poor with rain and sleet. We finally crested Mt. Cheget at 3400m. Down in town, though I only needed two items, I had to wait while almost ever other member of the group was fully outfitted for gear. I should have been done in a few minutes but instead watched the entire movie "Brave" in Russian before my turn. Only one other member of our group is experienced, and the lone female member looks fit, but I am concerned about this squad as the mountain sees 15-30 deaths a year due to the quick changes in the weather. Our weather has been poor and we have yet to see the sky.
Vladimir, our guide, takes us up the mountain to practice ice techniques. No one but I has used an axe before, but we don't do crampons because he says it will be too hard for them to learn both at once...We rode a chairlift up today that was 60 years old. If I hadn't seen a scrap pile of old chairs, I would have sworn we were riding the originals.
On the 27th we headed up Elbrus for the first time. The chairlifts take us from 2350m to 3400m just like that. When then hiked up snow nearly 3 hours to 3900m as slow as possible and then worked on technique. It was a good refresher. My reward was purple chucks for dinner....beets. After that was beetroot soup. If there is a worse food out there, I don't want to encounter it. I managed to get through it by mixing them all together and adding tons of salt, pepper, and butter.
July 1: We are up the mountain for good. Chairlifts and a snow cat get us to our huts at 3900m. We have wifi and toilets! We had heard horror stories of the huts on Elbrus but ours were plush with its own dinning room. We left at 11:15am to head up to the famed Pastukhov Rocks at 4600m, got into crampons, and then climbed 200m more to the top of the ridge. It took 4 hours round trip and most of it was in a cloud with swirling winds. Others struggled but I ran down the final few hundred meters feeling good. Then I felt horrible. I had a splitting headache, my stomach was off, and I stepped out to puke. I didn't have enough water for the altitude and paid dearly for my aggressive descent. Some meds from the guide sorted me out.
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| Our home on the mountain |
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| The view from my bunk |
July 2: Climbed up just 200m today and sat for a while on the memorial rock, watching the mountain. Then our group got into the snow and built a snow woman, boobs and all. I guess a bunch of Russian men are longing for more women out here. I sit at dinner and watch as people take the communal bowl of sour cream and eat from it with their spoon, or individually eat the veggies out of a bowl of salad. I get translated to me about 25% of what the guide instructs, and about 1-2% of what is said at dinner but I manage to be ok. It is lonely on the hikes with no one to just banter with.
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Do you want to build a snowman?
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July 3: Midnight. Summit day. After little sleep, I rise and get ready in the vestibule, trying not to wake the others. I shovel a quick breakfast because, as the Russians say, "No porridge, no summit." By 1am I am in full gear, including crampons, and take a 10 min snowmobile ride (that costs me $100) to the top of the Rocks at about 4800m opting for a long climb than my team. I feel this is criminal but it is the way of the mountain. Most of the lower slopes are as wide as a football field and during the day, climbing with snowmobiles and snowcats plowing by is like finishing in a canoe with jet skis all around. I begin hiking with a new guide who says nothing during our hour and a half together. We stop only once for a break but otherwise we inch up, step-by-step, the steep face. I feel terrible and once at the top of the ridge, we sit in the snow, freezing, until the rest of our party is brought up to 5000m by snowcat. They arrive but mill around, and I am eager to leave.
We plod in a line up the ridge of the East summit, mostly in a cloud but occasionally a break in the sky showed glimpses of the impending sunrise before stealing it away again. Eating and drinking is near impossible as the slope is about 45 degrees and the blowing wind threatens to pull us off and freeze our extremities in minutes. We are not roped (nor would I want to be to these people). Eventually, in the light, we dropped down into the saddle between the summits. The wind was so strong we had to hunch down to speak to each other, like the army under the blades of a helicopter. We dropped one trekking pole in exchange for our ice axes and faced the West summit. The climb was unbearable. The wind would yank someone off the mountain so we threw ourselves forward, buried the axe, hunkered down, and took a few steps when it abated, only to repeat frequently.
At this point several of our party decided to turn back. We almost lost another when his hat blew off and he tried to run after it across the slope. He tripped in the snow and on his crampons and started to skid down the mountain before he slowed and the guide dove on him. After pushing on in the hurricane, we hit a fixed rope and clipped in. Halfway across the traverse of the face the guide pulls his head from the radio and yells "Turn around!" What?!?! The winds are punishing on the top and the final ridge is unclimbable. I beg him to proceed to the turn and just wait and see and we do. We are at 5555m and the summit lies at 5642, just 87 vertical meters above us, over a few rocks, all fixed rope. But it is clear we have no choice. We must turn after 6 hours of effort to get here. The summit is 20 minutes of climbing (on a good day) away, but today is not that day.
Instantly we are in trouble. The wind, which has been awful the whole time, now is raging in our face. I am wearing glacier glasses but can't see anything as specks of ice blast me in the face. Thankfully the guide swaps me for his ski goggles and that part improves. The wind has turned the snow into balls so it is like walking on Dipping Dots. The footprints in front are blasted away instantly so footing is difficult and the going is slow. What should have been a relatively quick jaunt down is hindered by exhaustion, bad weather, and the fact that we have been climbing for hours and have no summit to show for it. During some of the more technical portions there are a few slips and lucky catches. Once on the main slope I would walk until collapsing in the snow, wait for others, and plod on, over and over. I crash into camp with 15cm of snot hanging from my nose and I am too tired to change out of my wet socks and pants.
A day of hydration, rest, and refueling still leaves me smashed and I know that there is no chance of a repeat attempt, and no one here wants one. The next day we pack out and return down the mountain. My day gets weirder from there. We males head to a Russian mineral spring. During the 2 mile walk, we follow a garbage-lined path in the woods to a market where Gypsie woman are selling goods. I am told to sip water from a pump spewing water out of the ground. I do so reluctantly. In the banya, we strip and enter a sauna that is between 80-100 degrees Celsius. I can only do about 5 min in there before stepping out. My choices are to jump into a small pool or go to the shower. I choose pool and instantly bolt out of it. It was ice cold. Back in the sauna and I come out to the shower, pull a cord, and a bucket of ice water falls on me. We repeat this charade. Back in the sauna I meet Sasha, a man who makes me lie down, bare ass in the air. He takes a branch of leaves from a bucket of water and starts smacking me with the branch up and down my body. When I don't think I can take the heat and pain any more, he tells me to flip over. No Way! I eventually do, balls to the sky, and he beats me again. Thoroughly sore and somewhat embarrassed, I leave, into the ice pool, and onto the bench for hot tea again. They ask me (I assume), "How was it?" and I tell them they are all crazy and sit down with welt marks in the shape of oak leaves on my back. I decline a repeat round of the torture, convinced it is a prank on the American. I then turn down a chance to do it to someone else and learn I got to go first as I was the guest.
Team votes to go out for dinner. I did not, as it meant spending more money and having no one to talk to but majority rules. I enjoy a few beers, lamb, veal, and even tried liver (of what animal I cannot say). I get my t-shirt and certificate and walk home. I awake about to burst. Convinced I ate too much I try to sleep. Nope. I vomit in the toilet and spend the next 4 hours doing so every 30 minutes. It stopped at 530 and by 7am I was showered - weak legged and bubbly stomach. No breakfast for me. I said goodbye to the team and tipped Vladimir 4000 Rubles and left in a van, solo. The driver seemed to think it was a challenge to double the speed limits and take lots of chances on the curvy mountain road going down the valley. Dehydrated, nauseous, and with no air con, I was in pain for all 3 hours of the drive. I spent 3 more sitting on the floor or standing in line in the hot, noisy little airport before my 2.5 hour flight to Moscow. From there I had 2 hours transferring by train and wandered with this big pack to my hotel where I ate crepes, my first meal in over a day. I slept 11 hours.
My trip capped off with a self-guided tour of Red Square. I wanted to see Lenin but it is closed on Tuesdays, the only day I was there. Figuring out the subway was an ordeal as the stops are all in Russian characters and don't go in order on the signs. It is difficult to be a stranger in a strange land.
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| A subway sign |
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| Subway decor in Moscow |
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| Red Square |
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| Red Square |
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| Kremlin |
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| Lenin's Tomb |
I am disappointed to not have made the summit and know I can climb these peaks. However, I survived an exciting , solo trip to Russia and have the story to tell so I am eager to do more.
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