MT. ELBRUS, RUSSIA

Geography and History

Much of the feeding frenzy for climbing Elbrus arose outside the Soviet Union with the publication of the book The Seven Summits by Dick Bass, the late Frank Wells and Rick Ridgeway, a how-to manual for wealthy Walter Mittys seeking to avoid the mid life crisis while pissing away hundreds of thousands of dollars in a quest to become the first person to stand on top of the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. What was amazing about this book was not only that Bass did it, in the process becoming the oldest Everest summiteer, but that a lot of real alpinists, natural athletes and physicists read the book and decided to set similar personal goals for themselves, usually at a somewhat less sumptuous level than Bass had established. The book has spawned a mini cottage industry as gnarly leader/guides attempt to seduce and then haul up high mountains groups of lesser mountaineers, adventurers, goats and cattle. It is a guaranteed certainty that everyone killed on Everest this year who spoke English as a primary language had read this book.

Among the revelations in the book, Bass & Co. point out that Mt. Blanc is not the highest mountain in Europe, this distinction falling to the western summit of Russia's Mt. Elbrus, which aces out the pride of the Alps by 821m. Of course, the eastern boundary of Europe is not as well defined as, say, the eastern boundary of Australia, nevertheless, most everyone is now including Russia west of the Caucasus as a part of Europe, and maybe even as part of of NATO. I had been on the mountain in 1988, climbing to the slightly lower eastern summit with a hyperorganized group of aged Swiss skiers and a tough looking but over the hill American physicist, most of whom pooped out at the saddle between the peaks about 200m below the summit. This would have sufficed for me to notch my belt and move on to Everest, except that my partner on climbs of Denali, Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro, not having been near the place himself, continued to bug me about the piddly 20m difference between the western and eastern summits of Elbrus. Thus it was, that when a technical meeting on high power microwaves in plasmas was announced for August in Russia, one of the best times for climbing Elbrus, it became the plan to add the climb to attendance at the meeting. This made for a logistics nightmare of sorts.

The Trip

Our plane tickets had been obtained by the mountain guide firm CET-NEVA, based in St.P., and had been delivered to our host in Moscow. Not only did this little piece of organization work, but all airport connections, tickets, permits, invitations, visas and other personal services went off without a hitch. This is to be expected in a country with nuclear weapons, except this was Russia, so it was still a pleasant surprise which bodes well for the eventual economic recovery of the place.

We were very happy when Sergei Kalmykov (yes, THE Sergei Kalmykov), an old (really old, at 57 years) physicist friend from St. Petersburg had let us know that he would climb with us and do the organizational work for CET-NEVA. In St. Petersburg we stayed with his family and had received the unsettling news that the weather in the Caucasus had been just awful for about a month and the settling news that no one had recently gotten his ass shot off by the Chechans, or the Russians for that matter, in the Baksan Valley. We left for Mineralnye Vody 7 days after the Chechans had overrun Russian positions in the Chechan capital of Grozny, a mere 100 miles from the MV airport. The flight was uneventful except for the guy in the row in front of us with the poorly concealed 9mm automatic pistol and our getting a ride to visit the chief of MV airport security on our arrival for taking a photo of our plane. ("This isn't an airport, it's a WAR ZONE." "But I could buy this airplane and sell it in the States..." "Give me your film, blah, blah.") After this and a round of smiles and handshakes, we found Kalmykov and his bus and Alla, who would be going with us up the valley.

Ahh, Alla, actually the cute and perky girlfriend of a naval officer making a career change, whose already translucent blouse was backlit by the setting sun to the point of nudity, served as an omen of good times and sunny skies yet to come as we bumped, smoked and ground up the valley in our dirty blue piston slapping bus of friendship and lust.

The GAI, a sleazy group of traffic cops charged, apparently, with terrorizing motorists with random stops and with lining their own pockets in the process, surprised us all by only stopping us once on the way to the Baksan Valley. Total bribe, $3. The return trip after the climb would turn out to include two stops and $12. GAI officers manned 5 permanent posts and several flying checkpoints on the road between the MV airport and the mountain. More serious looking OMON troops from the Interior Department guarded key installations and in particular the airport itself. You know it's serious when you see an AK-47 with two clips taped together so that a quick flip of the wrist can double the firepower. Even the nuts shooting up schoolyards in the States only need one clip as a rule.

Arrival at the Hotel Sokol meant parting with Alla, unfortunately, and setting up in our spartan but clean and comfortable three man room. Sergei got his own room. The hotel allowed us to keep our room to store our excess junk while we were on the mountain for $20 per day. We had noticed that despite the dire recent history of the weather, we began to see signs of clearing. Sergei suggested a little hike to a glacier at 2700m the following day, but when dawn broke things looked good, with mighty Donguzorun towering in the clear over our little hotel restaurant. So we had a nice breakfast of Diamox (acetazolomide) and gruel and packed up for Azau and the first steps up the mountain.

Azau, the lower terminus of the Elbrus cable car system, has seen better days, which makes one ponder hanging from a cable 50m off the ground in a cabin which required some grunts to close the door. Remembering that even the Palm Springs Tram has killed a passenger either makes one more fatalistic or more nervous. All up the mountain, residue from the construction and repair of the tram, including old cables and truck assemblies, lay below us. Catch one of these snow snakes with a ski and you will know it. Fortunately, at this time Bruce had not yet been trapped in a Moscow elevator for an hour, so he apparently assumed all would be OK. Bill, Sergei and I, more experienced with the Russian situation, figured that if our numbers were up, they were up. In either case the result is the same...you get in and ride.

Up, up, up we went and as we rose out of the valley, the mountain hove into view. The scale was misleading, and since the first views confirmed that we would not face many technical obstacles, our breasts puffed up with overconfidence. Behind us the whole brow of the Caucasus lay at our feet across the Baksan Valley. Beyond that was a foreign country, Georgia, home of Joseph Stalin and the source of our future weather. One can either travel to Siberia in cattle cars by train or be blown there, it turns out.

Above the second tram station and well above timberline we passed a few more piles of trash, and a remarkable quantity of discarded vodka bottles. We gingerly approached the loading area for the single chair lift, wondering if we would look like fugitives from a Warren Miller film and silently thinking that some of these bottles had undoubtedly been emptied by the chairlift crew the previous night. Considering the height above sea level, there were enough bottles to have polluted everyone within 100 miles, but of course, many of these bottles dated from the dawn of time. At least we figured that the shooting would be less accurate, should some conflict break out. The Priut, or climbers' hut, would prove to be even better endowed with junk.

We mounted the chairs with our packs in our laps and with each loading disappointed cameramen failed to get shots of guys falling on their butts. We were great or at least lucky. Within a few days the bull wheel bearing on this lift would fail, so unbeknownst to us at the time, this would be our last chance to look like jerks on the chair. Of course, we could have looked stupid being rescued from the chair, but fortunately our collective luck held out. Under the chairlift painted in large white letters on the rock is the information that "Popov is an idiot." The written Russian language, unlike English, is apparently still lagging behind the spoken version. At the top of the chairlift is a group of about 16 cozy quonset huts, which can serve as a base of operations in lieu of the Priut. Staying there would make a very long summit day, however, and does not provide the same acclimatization or ambience as the Priut.

At the top of the chair we disdained the offer of a snow cat ride to the Priut in favor of a one hour hike through the slush. Although the snow cat driver was disappointed in our independent push to get in shape for what was to come, a much larger English group would later funnel many rubles into his pocket while illustrating what has gone wrong with the Empire lately by failing to climb the mountain even with his help.

The Priut of Eleven: An Airstream travel trailer wannabe that sleeps 120 in comfortable squalor. If you like Camp 4, you'll like this place too. It's got three floors, about 30 rooms and a common area for cooking, deriding the English, sharing experiences, flexing, thinking about the future and exchanging addresses and phone numbers. The Priut has seen its share of adventure, and not only the burned out original building, but also the bullet holes in the present one bear mute testimony to the struggles which have enveloped it. There is a trickle of water available above the hut in the rocks. Although in previous years the hut provided stove fuel, this was no longer the case and every party carried their own fuel. The Priut has a resident manager, electricity and, new this year, a bar. It was good that we didn't discover the latter until after our climb, but it was heaven sent that we discovered it then. God is a wise person. Except for the boombox, of which more anon, the Priut had changed very little since my previous visit a lifetime ago. In any case, the view from the Priut is truly spectacular.

We were ensconced there with the aforementioned English, some Israelis, Russians, Belorussians, Americans, Polish, Chinese and a few kids of uncertain genesis. If there were any French, they were too pleasant to be noticed, therefore there probably were no French. One Russian Mafioso appeared complete with bodyguards. A very loud (potentially French) Israeli journalist accompanied by two silent goons introduced herself as a JIP, a Jewish Israeli Princess. Thinking kindred spiritual thoughts, our token Jew, Bruce, moved in. The JIP immediately demanded that Bruce prove his Jewishness by laying it on the table, an act which he sadly refused to perform on command. I could have vouched for him, but I was too busy throwing up to offer. The food, not the altitude, by the way, or maybe the JIP, despite her dark good looks, had turned my stomach.

A group of young Russian climbers had returned from success on the western summit. We had a good time talking to them, particularly one fair damsel named Natasha from Moscow. If you can believe it, Natasha lingered behind her group eyeing Bruce and waiting for virtually any sign from our boy. In the end, she stretched mightily, showing her wares, sighed a lonesome sigh of desire, hoisted her pack and padded off never to be seen again. Bruce later was spurred on to the summit by thoughts of Natasha and by our merciless needling, but I fear she is gone forever, one more story of unrequited love from the naked city. (Natasha!! You are a last year student studying English in the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. You have curly red hair and just climbed the western summit of Elbrus. If you read this, contact Bruce Tashoff, tashoff@deltanet.com.

The day after our arrival, we made the standard conditioning hike up to Pastukhov Rocks named after a Russian Army surveyor who did a lot of work in the area in the late 19th century. The mountain, by the way, was first climbed by a Kabardian named Killar Khashirov on 10-Jul-1829, the date regarded as the birthday of alpinism in the Motherland. Kabardians are a small ethnic group hated by all other ethnic groups in the area. In recent times a program of genocide waged by the Shevardnadzians and Ghamzakurdians coupled with a crippling outbreak of goat syphillus has nearly wiped out this group. We would like to believe that we are as tough as these early alpinist gentlemen, since they had the advantages of animal transport. While this may be so, they also had to do the job without the benefits of lycra, boomboxes, Diamox or the bar at the Priut. Times were tougher then.

Our Pastukhov day may have provided some conditioning, but it also had the consequence of gobbling up the only good weather day we would encounter. That afternoon, a very warm and strong wind out of the general direction of Georgia blew up and everyone who had ever heard the words 'cold front' began to face east and mutter incantations. Planning a 2:00 am start, we tried to get into bed by 8:00 pm. This proved to be one of those nights that was. Suffice it to say that if I never hear another Russian rock and roll tune on another boombox it will be too soon. The rescue squad and the Priut administration partied hearty until the wee hours in the room next to ours. There seemed to be no effect of our threats to kill them all, and therefore we got only a couple of hours sleep. This boorish behavior was not repeated on subsequent days, but at the time it seemed we would die of fatigue halfway to the summit. It reminded me of one time at Camp Muir on Ranier when one of my companions kept jumping up screaming, "No, no, no!" throughout the wee hours. I have this effect on people, but this time the screams of my companions were lost in the bass line in the Priut.

Sure enough, at about 3:30 am we moved out to the gentle thud of occasional snowflakes in rather light winds. The large English group guided by Sergei #2, one Sergei Ginsburg, who presumably also refused to demonstrate his Jewishness, had been to Pastukhov Rocks with us the previous day and also was stirring. The same people who had been muttering incantations muttered all the louder as the snowfall steadily increased. After about an hour, our group entered the clouds. By the time Pastukhov Rocks had been reached, it was snowing like crazy and the wind had picked up to about 50 mph. Discussions about the actual wind strength were complicated by the fact that everyone was using a different system of units. Temperatures were dropping rapidly in degrees Celsius, and snowflakes were too. We were all using using base 10, at least, since fortunately we were near to an Arabic country. The English turned back at Pastukhov Rocks. One group of two pudgy "ladies" and a Russian "guide" got lost on a premature descent and found themselves looking at a 20 cm wide crevasse, which freaked the ladies (who were 40 cm minimum diameter) and led to the summary firing of the guide. Since the route was wanded every 50 m or so, it was hard to understand how any of them had lost their way, but, well, it happened.

The snow was dry and the winds were strong. Somewhere in the Caucasus lightning was flashing and the rumble of thunder occasionally filled out the acoustic spectrum below the tortured wail of the wind. Bill and Bruce were surprised to notice the glow of St. Elmo's fire at their fingers, noses and axes. It will no doubt occur to the reader that Bruce was being presented with a rare and spectacular photographic opportunity, which would certainly have fascinated the JIP and in the context of another religion would have guaranteed at least a nomination to sainthood. Out of respect for the bounds of good taste (always an issue with us) and respecting also the wind chill, Bruce kept everything covered and snuggly.

Our hardy group mushed onward and upward, picking up a goodly coating of rime ice and generally feeling like Robert Falcon Scott and his men. By dawn, we were in strong winds, heavy snow and continually decreasing temperatures. The vote was unanimous to retreat, so about an hour above Pastukhov Rocks we turned tail. As for the English, they returned to a stormy session in the commons after which Sergei Ginsburg quickly hired a replacement guide for the group, who had been up the mountain 100 times and who claimed to be able to see 50 meters. Ignoring the fact that anyone who had climbed Elbrus 100 times must have a metric screw loose, the English finally were satisfied when a deal was struck to get them to Pastukhov Rocks next time by snow cat. These guys didn't invent the word posh for nothing. It's also fitting that England is the home of both the Wimpy and Prince Charles.

Summit Day

At dawn we were again at Pastukhov Rocks. The wind was strong, but only about 40 mph and steady. There was no snow and visibility was between 20 and 50 m. It was crampons and axes on hard snow and the temperature had dropped to about -1C. Although most of the Russians and others had crampons, many were without front points, and some climbers had boots only. In true European style, many used ski poles and there were some sticks, so there probably were some places where the wands were 100 m apart. The variety of equipment in use on the mountain was about the same as the range between Washington's Army and the Hessians. We continued up, eventually passing all the Russians except our own guy Sergei the Stout.

The route goes straight up from Pastukhov Rocks about 1.5 hours and then begins to traverse left to the saddle between the two peaks. On the traverse we met a group of Belorussian students who had started up the western summit but then in complete whiteout and buffeted by ice chunks had retreated. They were smiling, knowing that they had given it a good try. The English were presumably just stirring by this time. We continued.

At the saddle, a natural venturi between the two highest points for 3000 miles yields big winds...really big winds. The visibility was bad enough that Sergei, who had never been to the western summit, wanted to hide behind a rock and wait for a clearing. I insisted that we knew the route and that hiding was tantamount to failure. A nice thing about mountains is that up is frequently on route and when there is no more up, you may be on top even if you can't see anything. After a powwow in which our words were snatched from our throats and strewn like chaff on the northern slopes of the mountain, we found an ice/snow field by feel which was going in the right general direction and so we headed up. The temperature had dropped to about -4C and the winds were about 60mph.

The route followed a band of mixed ice and snow with a few 40-45 degree sections but mostly at a pitch of about 30 degrees. It was seldom necessary to front point. After a buffeting time we came out on top at a false summit above the saddle. Here the winds were extreme and in a quick moment of parting of the clouds we got a clear look at the real summit, about 0.5 km around the edge of what might have been an ancient summit crater. We really fought our way around. Bruce noticed that my nose was frozen first on one side and then on the other. I stopped to warm it. Big job on big nose. Finally we found ourselves at the base of the true summit pinacle and we sidestepped up, backs to the howling wind. On top, where a bust of Lenin once had perched, there was a stone block with a little protruding knob. We clutched the stone or sat on the ground to avoid getting blown around. The winds were fierce and Bill Guss watched in fascination as his fingers turned white when he took a photo. Bruce had run out of film, but to change rolls was out of the question. It didn't matter much, since there was only one brief clearing before the clouds danced back in with a vengeance. Kalmykov and I shot a few photos and then we beat it the hell out of there. It was the shortest time I have ever spent on a summit and it was plenty. The temperature was about -6C and the wind was blowing 50-70 mph.

The key to survival was to find the route back to the saddle in the wind and whiteout. We had several sets of compass bearings for the reciprocal course, so this was easier than it might have seemed. First the traverse to the false summit, then pretty much due east to the saddle, with a rock/ice interface providing some guidance. Surprisingly, our route down was somewhat more direct than the ascent and we unexpectedly found ourselves back in the saddle again. Here there is a destroyed refuge with no roof. We hid in the lee of this feeble shelter for a breather while spindrift and chunks of ice flew around like shrapnel. Five minutes of this rest was enough and we boogied for the first marker pole and began an uneventful trapse back to the priut. Above Pastukhov Rocks we came out of the clouds, but angry puffs swirled around the range and the view was not spectacular.

The End Game

The English group had meanwhile consumed vast quantities of tea, but had also engaged the snow cat for another summit attempt the next day. While we slept in the morning after our success, some of them motored up to Pastukhov and then struggled to the saddle, shedding stragglers all the way. Some of them hadn't even started, citing our overly heroic accounts of our own greatness as proof that it was too difficult for them (to wit: "Look at the magnificent bodies on those Americans, and their great courage and good looks, and still they had trouble. We'll never make it, Watson.") One of the English woman said her circulation was bad, precluding an attempt, but as I comforted her tenderly I nevertheless noticed that she was quite warm, though shy. The JIP seemed more interested in Bruce knowing that he had summited, but he still refused to whip it out. I hit the bar and came up with the best beers I have ever tasted. Our time to the top had been about 8.5 hours and we were back at the Priut in 12.

Having run out cans of Chinese boiled meat, it became clear that we would have to forego further basking in the glory of it all and return to the real world. The weather remained awful up high but our descent was pleasant and was punctuated by a stop in a bar above the second tram station. The failure of the chairlift meant that we passed several groups of sweating grunting mountaineers laboring under the loads of their stuff huffing and puffing up the road. This gave Bruce one last chance to fall in love and this time he did not space out and got the name and phone contact number for a cheery American guide leading a bunch of REI clients from Singapore up the trail.

We spent the next day enjoying the valley and rearranging our flight schedules from the incredibly archaic telephone switchboard in Terskol. A stroll to the town of Elbrus was a lot of fun and once again demonstrated that people are more or less the same the world over if you don't try to shoot them.

Then finally it was all over and time to ride off into the sunset. The final vignette had us buying 4 locking carabiners from a drunk guy named Ahmed who came to our room clutching a bundle of titanium ice screws with steel hangers and these lovely red 'biners. They won't see my rack, but the price was right at $3 a pop. He also had a carpet for sale. Claimed it flew. Should we have bought it? Allah, or perhaps Alla, only knows.

If you have any general comments about Mt. Elbrus in general or this story in particular, please feel free to leave them below. If you have specific questions about either summit, how to arrange accommodations and travel that are not covered below, or questions about the trip in general that you would like to address to the author directly, you can also contact John Lohr.

A Los Alpinistas story and photographs by Big Daddy Sloth, John Lohr.

Mt. Elbrus trip report postscripts and comments

• Thu Aug 27 Priut Hut burnt Richard J. Hughes (212)

This forum is powered by Ceilidh ("kay-lee")
Copyright© 1995-2000 Lilikoi Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Itinerary

Minivan to Baksan Valley, Hotel Sokol at Adylsu above the town of Elbrus 16-Aug-96 (3 hours);

Private car to Azau, the lower terminus of the Elbrus ski lift system 17-Aug-96 (30 min);

Aerial tramway to Starovo Kruzorova, 2950m, aerial tramway to Mir, 3500m, single chairlift to 3800m, foot or snowcat to Priut Odinnatsati, the Refuge of Eleven, 4200m 17-Aug-96 (4 hours);

Conditioning climb to Pastukhov Rocks, 4800m 18-Aug-96 2 hours up, leisurely down;

First summit attempt 19-Aug-96 4950m;

Second summit attempt 20-Aug-96, 8.5 hours to Western Summit, 5642m, 12 hours total;

Return to Hotel Sokol 21-Aug-96;

Make plane reservations, drink and carouse in the Baksan Valley 22-Aug-96;

Private bus to Mineralnye Vody airport (3.5 hours) 23-Aug-96;

Air to Moscow (Vnukhovo Airport) Vnukhovo Airlines 23-Aug-96 (2 hours).

Cost

Excess baggage Moscow-MV $30, MV-Moscow $6, you figure;

Bus MV-Baksan Valley-MV $300 for all;

Hotel Sokol $20 per person per night, food included, $20 per night to keep the room during the climb;

Hotel reservation fee $20;

Private car Hotel Sokol-Azau-Sokol $20 for all;

Priut Odinnatsati $11 each foreigner per night, $6 for locals;

Public bus in the Baksan Valley R2000 each per ride, about $0.50;

Ski lifts $10 each round trip (small refund due to failure of chairlift on return);

CET-NEVA fee for organization of visa invitation, tickets, permits $350 for all;

Guide fee $500;

Guide expenses about $400, including airfare and food for the group on the mountain.

Note about guides