It’s the 24th of July. Sorry we missed yesterday’s dispatch, we couldn’t get enough satellite coverage to get out of the valley we were in, which was the Adylsu Valley. It is a beautiful glacial valley near the ridge crest of the main Caucas range. It is one of my favorite places in the world.

We love to come up here and camp, we did so last night as we left the comforts of our lodge behind for just one night and we had a beautiful camp in a meadow we called the Green Hotel. We watched deer grazing on the ridge above us and Lenya our cook, our mountain cook and the woman who will cook for us up on Elbrus prepared a wonderful Borsch, that classic Russian soup for us.

This morning we had our first glacier day, we got up at 4:00am and we moved up through the Adylsu glacier and began climbing quite early. One thing that was on our mind was Deke Owens had been talking the whole trip and he was talking this morning about the fact that it was he and Corrine’s anniversary, eleventh anniversary actually and that it is a real special day for him. I have to comment that Corrine and the kids have been so supportive for Deke climbing with me a lot over the last couple of years. The adventures and challenges he has shared with Berg Adventures have been wonderful and we are thinking about his family back home.

We climbed today at a really unique and special place, we went up to the very ridge crest of the Caucasus at 12,000 ft (3,657m), and we put on our crampons and climbed up the glacier. Eventually we roped up and reached a col or a small pass at a really spectacular place today.