Elbrus Expedition Dispatch

July 16, 2016 – To Pastukhov Rocks and Beyond

Today was our big acclimatization and conditioning day. The one that we traditionally try to push up pretty high to find out what Mount Elbrus might be all about.

Get ourselves tired and take a rest day tomorrow. As part of our continuing acclimatization before the summit day. We climb the 3,000 ft. up to Pastukhov Rocks in heat, I talked a lot about that this summer, it has been very, very warm on Mount Elbrus. We were very, very warm today as we climb that 3,000ft up. Then most of the group continued on another 1,000ft to about 16,400ft above Pastukhov Rocks, high on Mount Elbrus. We all came down quickly, the team is really strong. Leila had wonderful chicken soup waiting.

Now, changing mountain weather, I am standing outside of our barrel, our dining barrel, and there is freezing rain. We heard thunder storm developing, just about the time we got back down. Now we are settling in, what looks to be pretty stormy night at the barrels. But the team is looking very strong; we are pleased with our progress towards getting up Mount Elbrus by getting properly acclimatized. The team is great, we are having fun and we will let you know how it goes on the coming days.