Elbrus Expedition Dispatch

July 19, 2016 – Looks Like We Picked the Right Summit Day!

We awoke at the Barrels this morning to the sound of thunder and a hard rain falling on the tin roofs. It might have been an unsettling sound; but our successful summit was behind us and our weary muscles could enjoy lying in bed a bit more; we know that all we had to do now was to go down.

But down turned out to be quite the adventure! By 9:30 it was time to load the snow cats for the brief shuttle down the chairlifts. We have a lot of gear. All our trash from the past few days in black plastic bags, our duffel bags of course, and an assortment of ice axes, double boots and ski poles.

Our rental gear was on top, supposedly, because we planned to hit the rental shops to return the soggy gear before we went to lunch.

The whole process went remarkably well, due to teamwork and the great spirit of fun that we share on this trip. Who cares? The showers can wait, we climbed our mountain.

By 1:00 pm we were sitting down to a great lunch at our favourite restaurant in Cheget. We usually sit outside there, but with the rain we took the table inside where we watched videos on the big screen TV while we enjoyed delicious local food.

When Pink Floyd's "The Wall" came on, Vladimir Kopylov motioned to the bar to crank up the volume. He explained to us how important that banned song had been to him in his youth in the Soviet Union. Now, a long time later, we savored the chance to relax after a difficult climb, enjoying the peace and camaraderie that mountains always seem to bring.

By mid-afternoon, we were back at our hotel, which seemed even better than it was before we left. We have two more days to enjoy the Elbrus region. Stay tuned for more photos from our climb and for some stories about the time we spend here in the Caucasus.