Trip Reports

Elbrus - 13 to 25 August '16

Elbrus 13 August 2016 team on the summit

Written by Leader Chris Allewell, September 2016

Looking out from the hotel balcony, the golden minarets glistened in the morning sun, contrasting starkly with the massive slate grey monument of Lenin emerging amongst the trees of Ploshchad Lenina, but, this was Piatigorsk and Russia the land of many contrasts from exceptionally surly hotel receptionists to warm hearted and generous mountaineers willing to share their food (and vodka) with you.

The team had largely assembled in Heathrow, the glow of red Jagged Globe kitbags attracting all like moths to a flame, Chris and Anthony were similarly drawn in along the way so we all emerged from Mineralnye Vody arrivals hall together into the waiting arms of Peter and Victor our local guides.

Whilst Jagged Globe carefully selects its leaders (obviously with one exception), having a runner up for the Piolet D’or and someone who had summited Elbrus more than 200 times (Victor stopped counting after this) as local guides was pretty impressive and they certainly did not disappoint. Apart from mountains, Victor’s passion was thermal springs and the restorative properties of their water. Sampling the delights of these springs was something the team quickly delegated to myself and I grew adept at smiling whilst drinking something akin to distilled rotten eggs.

Base camp with it's resident ring ouzel family, clutch of puppies, less delightful barking dog, delicious goulash, surprising salads and its warm showers accommodated us for two nights whilst we acclimatised. We then headed up through the alpine meadows resplendent in their coats of bright yellow Leopardsbane, purple gentians and tiny blue forget-me-nots to high camp. At high camp, a helicopter drop of supplies had veered slightly off target and whilst initially there was some reluctance to assist in the recovery, the fact that several cases of Champagne were included in the contents spurred us to assist. Our efforts were amply rewarded, but stored for post summit celebrations.

Glacier training passed amid storms and lightening shows and we emerged after the evening meal to see Elbrus, her twin summits basking in the moonlight with a background of a thousand stars. The weather largely held after these first storms and our acclimatisation walk started as many an alpine day in gorgeous sunshine. 4800m was tagged by most and 4500m by all, followed by a gentle descent to more goulash and salad. A day of rest and summit preparation followed although Nicky and Simon were definitely feeling under the weather and unfortunately had to sit out the preparations. A Lammergier cruised past in the afternoon, its huge wings not moving as it used the thermals to circle camp searching for any bodies that it might gain some bones from (this amazing vulture actually eats bones rather than flesh as its stomach acid is so strong it can dissolve them). Fortunately, it found no one in our camp!

A final check of the weather forecast at 1730 and an early evening meal and we headed for bed nervously anticipating the ascent to come. Summit day dawned, or more correctly, summit night as we ate breakfast at 2300 before heading over the boulders to the base of the glacier at midnight. The moon lit our way, as crampons squeaking in the frozen snow, we made our way upwards. Orion was definitely rising faster than we were in the eastern sky but we still made good progress, reaching Lenz rocks at 0400. Unfortunately, Rachel had not fully recovered from her illness and left us just below Lenz rocks heading down with Victor. Two ropes now continued, a slight steepening passed quickly, but the traverse (which rapidly acquired many names, not all of which are repeatable here) was punishingly slow despite its easy angle. As the alpenglow stretched into alpine dawn the Col and the end of the devils traverse still laughed at us in the distance, but powered by our treble Bounty bars we eventually reached the Col and slumped into a half hour rest, the hordes from the ski lift and snowcat enabled South side gawking at the crazy English (well 6 British, 1 Canadian and 1 Russian) who were actually climbing the mountain.

The final steeper slopes to the summit were dispatched easily and Matt and Megan were able to walk hand in hand onto the summit. Iain, Matt C, Chris, Sid, Anthony and Peter and myself followed, but not hand in hand just for clarity! After many photos we stood in splendid isolation on the summit gazing across the jagged summits of the Caucasus into Georgia and beyond, before clouds building on the horizon forced us to contemplate our descent.

Descent was speedy and just over 3 hours later tired legs were greeted by the smiling face of Victor eager to hear of our great tales and perhaps more importantly relieve tired legs of rucksacks as we stumbled rather than nimbly hopped over the boulders back into camp. A hot shower and several bottles of champagne were a fitting reward for our endeavours followed by a long contented sleep.

The following morning, we descended to base camp with Sid jogging down, emulating the Russian sky runner whom we saw daily and trained by running loads up and down between base camp and high camp. 3hrs 36 mins from base camp to the summit was his record so we gave him a few tips on how to improve! Rachael had a slightly slower descent and her attire for the occasion is now a Russian state secret.

We migrated over the next two days back to Piatigorsk via various “amazing” springs, whose waters when tasted varied from quite pleasant to gag inducing but we were assured these were all beneficial to our long term health if not our short term olfactory happiness.

After a memorable final meal, we sadly said our goodbyes at the airport. The team was separating, some to see Moscow and others to different parts of the globe, Peter was heading off to attempt the second ascent of an exceptionally hard route in Bezengi, and Victor was heading home for a few days before heading up Elbrus, yet again.

My deepest thanks must go to Peter and Victor for making the trip memorable in so many ways, but also to Iain, Matt, Megan, Matt C, Sid, Chris, Anthony, Nicky, Rachel and Simon for being such a pleasant group of mountaineers to travel with. I hope our paths will cross on the hills again. Lastly but by no means least, thanks also go to the Jagged Globe home team buried in the depths of Sheffield but without whom none of these amazing adventures could be had.

Stay safe in the hills.

Chris « Previous report | Next report »

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