Trip Reports

Elbrus - 30Jul to 11 Aug '16

Written by Leader Andy Chapman, August 2016

At London Heathrow on Saturday 30 July the group of five met up (Sian, Sheena, Paul, Nick and myself) for the flight to Moscow. The other two members, Kietil and Robert, joined us on the flight and the team were complete at Mineralne Vody. Kietil came from Norway and Robert currently works in Myanmar.

We sorted gear, relaxed at the hotel in Piatigorsk and went for an evening meal with our Russian guide Konstamin Zazdravnykh. Driving towards base camp we stopped and walked for two hours for the final section to base camp itself. The next day we did an acclimatisation trip to high camp in 4 hours up and 2 hours down, this was good preparation for the climb to high camp the next day.

At the high camp we had a crampon and ice axe practice and a glacier skills refresher day before walking to 4,800m in some brisk and lively weather conditions. The team experienced 30mph wind on what proved to be one of the best acclimatisation days I've had on an expedition, both in altitude and also in terms of coping with challenging conditions. Saturday was spent acclimatising and resting in preparation for summit day on the Sunday. In the early hours of Sunday 7 August I made hourly weather observations. With snowfall and electrical storms occurring, the decision was made to cancel the ascent for the day and try again on Monday. The team were disappointed, but not too down hearted, so managed to sleep and relax all day.

Thankfully on Monday 8 August at around midnight the weather improved and by 1am we were all up and having breakfast and then by 1:45am we started the long 1,900m ascent. First we reached the helicopter crash site at 4,800m. At this point dawn broke as we started the long traverse to the Elbrus saddle where at 9am we could see the vast majority of the climbers coming up from the southern route. Apparently about 80% of people who climb Elbrus use a combination of chairlift and Snow cat to reach as high as 5,100m on the south side.

With a little under a kilometer of walking and around 300m of ascent we started the steepest part of the route from the saddle to the summit of Elbrus. The entire team reached the top at around 11:15am.

For myself and the members of the trip this was a short and worthwhile expedition to Europe£s highest mountain. For some of the team this was a second or 3rd Seven Summit climb... there are more to come!

Andy Chapman, Expedition Leader

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