Elbrus Expedition Dispatch
June 28, 2010 – Moving up to the Barrels
Each of the last two days, we've been riding the tram that takes us up to the Barrel where we'll be living as we attempt to climb Mount Elbrus. Yesterday, we took a walk with our ice axes and equipment to climb on the glacier and to do our first hike on Elbrus. At the same time, Karina and Anastasia, our cook, were purchasing food that we'll be eating while we're climbing the mountain.
Moving up on the cable car
As we've climbed up over the past two days, we've really seen every version of the Elbrus trams, cable cars, and chairlifts that we've heard about. We rode the new high-speed gondola for two sections on Sunday and then we rode the old chairlift up to the Barrels.
This morning, we rode one of the old cable cars for the lower leg. It was nostalgic for me, having come here for many, many years. We had all of the food that Karina and Anastasia had purchased with us. As we moved from cable car to cable car, we had to move the food packages along as well. When we finally arrived this afternoon, Anastasia prepared a wonderful lunch.
We're in the mist up here. We have actually had a lot of cloudy weather. Today, the last section up to our Barrel where we'll be living was by snowcat. It is great to be moved in and we're all moving around on the glacier. We'll be doing acclimatization hikes up and down in preparation for the big summit climb coming up.
When we were staying down at the lodge in the valley, we often had hard rain at night. It is nice to fall asleep to the sound of the rain outside when you're in a cozy warm bed. But up from the world of restaurants and saunas, now we're in our little Barrel where we'll be sleeping at 12,500ft/3,800m tonight.
Paule and Linda moving upwards
Tom and Mo step out into the mist at the top of the second gondola.
The final step: we load onto a snowcat for our final section of the journey to our Barrel.
We've arrived!
Anastasia, our cook, prepared our first lunch at the Barrels.
Our home for the climb. We are in the grey Barrel. We have it all to ourselves, with our own kitchen and our own cook, Anastasia. It is quiet and clean and looks like it will be a great home.
Tom and Bill moved right in and made themselves at home.
Linda, Paule, and Karina are comfortable in the girls' side of the Barrel.
We move above the Barrels to over 14,000 feet on our acclimatization hikes.
Bill with his ice axe. We got our first ice axe practice on Sunday.
Tom and Paule moving on the snow. Our brief walks out from our Barrel get us accustomed to moving on snow as well as helping us acclimatize.
The team seems to be moving very well as we do our laps out from our home at the Barrel. The air is much thinner but no one is having problems.