How I went to Mount Elbrus
The highest I had been before was 2300 meters. It’s a quarter less air, and everything is weird. You breath differently. You sense a sway of your hand differently. It’s like getting out after many days stuck at home.
The Mount Elbrus — the highest mountain in Russia and Europe — is something from legends about great people. My relative was a professional climber and a guide. Back in the USSR, they had no specialized clothes, so he had been knitting gloves to his students. I was crying when reading their recollections.
And then suddenly my friend Sergey, a layman, summited Elbrus. Then I realized it was possible for me as well. For the next 6 years I wanted to get there. To expand my world. Some notable people who summited it were saying it was a valuable experience to them. I wanted to understand what it was to them.
Also I like discovering new places, like in a computer game.
I love the feeling when I had some idea from stories, and then it materializes and changes to become my own thing.
How it Works
This is not climbing but trekking. No need to pull yourself on rocks. You just walk up the lane all the way. It takes a few days to get used to the altitude. If you gain more than 700 m a day, you get mountain sickness: nausea, vertigo, and some other things, and they will send you down. Still, the land path is just about 15 km, so it’s pretty condensed.
The easiest route is from south. The old-school way is to carry 25+ kg backpacks and tents. The new and popular way is to ride a cable car to 3900 m and live in cabins. From there one can also ride a snowcat to 5100 m and only walk the last 542 m up. Everyone is free to choose their own challenge.
Those going with tents just walk the lane steadily higher every day. Those living in cabins have “the lower” and “the upper” parts of the tour. For the first few days, they live in the town Terskol at 2150 m (bottom-right on the screenshot) and hike to different mountains around it, each day higher. Then they move to a cabin at 3700–4100 m (roughly where snow begins on the screenshot), live there and walk up the slope and back, higher every day, to get used to it.
The northern route is much the same, but there is no cable car, so less people want to go there. The most beautiful route is from the east, but ice is cracked under the snow there, so it takes training. The western route is for real climbers with ropes, axes, and stuff.
Many agencies can take you there. As of 2020, tours from south started at $350 with backpack and tent, and $600 with cabins and snowcat. Add $300 to rent clothes and basic equipment if you arrived in shorts.
The season lasts from May to the end of September. July and August are the busiest because it’s warmer.
The Preparation
Breathing is the limiting factor in the mountains, because at the top its twice as less air and so twice less oxygen molecules per inhalation. They say if you can run for an hour that is sufficient and you need no more training. If not, start training at least two months in advance.
I started jogging, made it to 3 km per day, and my back started aching. Then I replaced it with walking up the stairs to avoid hits on my spine. I made it to 500 m per day with 14 kg on my back, but it started aching again. Then I moved from Moscow to my home city of Nizhny Novgorod where I had a swimming pool 6 minutes walk from home, but it was shot down because of what everything was shut down back then.
So I had to rely on my past capabilities and give up on improving:
- I had been swimming 1.5 km per day 3 times a week before.
- After 6 years of Yoga practice I can stretch my breath cycle to 50 seconds indefinitely.
- I like walking. My records are 40 km in a day in a city and 35 km in a day in a desert.
In simple words, I did no preparation.
I knew that the backpack will weight 25 kg. My back usually hurts under that. I did not train with that mass. I would better harm it there and recover later than harm it even before and cancel the tour. That remained my main fear up to the Day X.
The Agency and The Group
I always wanted to go the hard way, but I realized I am accustomed to this remaining just a dream. I am not getting any stronger year to year, so I must do something right now. I resolved to get on the top by any means that year.
I called up a few friends for the following plan. We would start it the hard way. If we fail, we would take the cable car. My friend Anton agreed, and he has found three more guys.
With agencies, I was looking for reputation and the gut feeling of their expertise from their lectures (not the cheap advertising style). My short list was:
- vpoxod.ru — they have a lot of tours, and my friends had been going with them. But they refused to set a private tour for us.
- AlpIndustria — a club that can take you to any mountain in the world, so even simple mountains like this is expensive with them.
- Peak — I liked their lectures right away, specifically this one:
They got me with their simplicity and openness. I committed with them, and we scheduled a private tour. But three guys went back, and the private tour turned too expensive for the two of us remaining. We decided instead to join another group with the same club, which was going the easy way with the cable car and a snowcat. I had to hire a private guide for me alone for some days to keep my way hard.
I had to first pay extra to for the conveniences of this group, and then even more to avoid them, that amounted to $900 for me. Plan in advance and choose a group that fits you and save.
Day −5
I had been driving for the whole weekend from mid-Russia south, and arrived to Terskol in the morning on Monday, September 14, a few days before the meeting, to do my remote job from the mountains on weekdays. The town is at 2150 m, and it’s very good to adapt there for 5 days passively. I felt dizzy on the first evening. It’s my advice to everyone to come to the mountains a few days before the tour.
Day −4
At 5:30 before work I set out walking the first lane I saw, and it led me here:
Do walk in the morning!
The lane also led me to the waterfall.
I had not seen Elbrus yet, it was behind other mountains. I was back to town by 9:40. That route is said to take 5–6 hours, and I was glad I made it faster and relaxed. I had no doubt I can do the whole tour, but each such confirmation was important to me because I love assurance and safety.
On the way back what I most wanted was to not work. I tasted what it’s like to just lie there in the mountain sun and dissolve in it.
I galled my feet, muscles were aching, so I did not go anywhere the following days and focused on finishing the job. My superior praised me, and then I quit (I gave them 2 months notice, which you should always do, the same heads up as you want to yourself).
Day 0
I drove back to Pyatigorsk, the nearest city with a train station, to meet Anton. On the map above it’s in the top-right. We went to the highest point in the city, mt. Mashuk, 993 m.
It’s too bad that a radio tower is at the very top of the hill so common people cannot get there. If I become the radio executive, I will order to move all radio towers aside from hill tops, so people have more wins in their lives.
And then I saw Elbrus for the first time:
Never before have I seen anything on land at 90 km distance. The mountain was enormous even that far away. It was then that I realized that was serious.
We drove back to Terskol by the bottom of Elbrus, met the group and had a dinner. We had a wonderful cook. On economy plans, members take turns to cook, but if it is not a part of your asceticism, take a cook from the agency, they totally worth it.
Day 1
We went the same way I took 6 days ago. The beauty was gone, because the morning was late. Only our photographer Kostya always looked good on the pictures, probably because he was in black and carried Canon 1DX Mark II.
We went 300 m higher then I did, just up the hill grass, off the lane. Someone called this thing The Old Observatory.
This is the part where you need trekking shoes and not just sneakers that I had. The difference is in the base. Trekking shoes are like a car tire. They almost do not bend, so you do not sense individual rocks, it saves feet from galling. Also it fixes the ankle joint so you cannot twist it.
We had only water and chocolate in backpacks, an easy load. They were giving us chocolate every day, because it’s hard to carry and eat anything more elaborate on the go.
In the evening were dinner and supper. I forgot to warn them I needed vegetarian food (I was a vegetarian for 2.5 years), so I had to eat borscht, buckwheat, and chicken.
Day 2
Many did not like the grass hill yesterday, so we were walking ordinary lanes today. We went up the Mount Cheget to 3200 m (on the screenshot above, the mountain at the bottom of the frame). On the way, the yesterday’s meat got me, and the activity spread the substances I was not used to throughout the body. I was the first in the group to throw up. The guide gave me this thing to recover and go on, it worked like a charm: https://www.google.com/search?q=electrobion
On the way back I took the cable chair. It literally was a chair in the sky, for the first time in my life. You are not even strapped, just your butt is in a small deepening, and that’s the only safety. Some sit in the office, and others are flying above the forest, that was amazing. You could kick the tree tops with your foot.
I was feeling bad in the evening still, ate almost nothing. I had vertigo, sensed fever, and tomorrow was the hardest day. I was thinking of taking a cable car with others instead of trekking.
I found a thermometer, and it showed no fever. That was the best moment in the whole day! Another happy thing was that I managed to go up 1200 m without meal before or during the hike. That gave me good chance for tomorrow.
Day 3 (The Day X)
I felt better in the morning, but the outlook was frightful still. My backpack weighted 25 kg. Luckily, they rented me out a good professional one. Turns out, it should hang mostly on pelvis and does not load your back much. It’s just that no one told me that before, and my whole life I was carrying loads incorrectly and in a harmful way. When I lifted and strapped this thing, the world has changed for me. I was suddenly sure everything will go well.
Most folks took the cable car, and I set out with my private guide Kamil. One more guy from the group went with us, a speleologist named Alexander. It was his 63rd expedition, he was around 50. He was not up for any challenge, so he sent his backpack with the cable car and just was walking for the views.
There are two routes up from south. The beautiful one takes two days. It continues the earlier lane with the observatory. One stays for the night at an abandoned cabin at 3500 m, it only takes a sleeping bag but no tent. The next day is to walk through a glacier. The group must go on a rope because the ice is cracked under the snow. There are also 3 open cracks about 1 meter wide, and you must jump across them. This route is for at least 3 people for safety reasons. Alexander refused to take it, so we took the boring passage under the cable car wires, on a rocky road where trucks go up and down, a few per day.
People mutilated everything on this road. I walked as if after a war.
It was hard to walk. Must stay silent, look under your feet, make a step, and again, and again. The phone was a savior because it showed the altitude. The main source of the spirit was the awareness of the altitude. The first halt was after 100 m gain. I checked it out and saw that only 1400 of the 1500 left for today, and that was a celebration. The next halt was after another 200 m, 1200 to go. The road never changed. Trucks were going up and down, Kamazes and ZiLs. The whole life boiled down to counting meters left, there was nothing more in the universe. My whole brain turned to a Windows progress bar:
Mid-way, I forced myself to eat a bar of chocolate. I learned that I can barely eat after load. After a meal, if I must walk again, something unpleasant inside me distracts. The guide told me to eat more, but I refused.
I saw how people make up obstacles to themselves. The whole group was having a rest in the camp above while I was here. When you are preparing, you see meaning in this, but here that reasoning vanished. I just had decided to carry this thing. And I am carrying it. And no one needs it. Particularly silly was me being the only guy of the three carrying that huge thing. Like a mule among people. You see what you artificially impose to yourself.
We had halts every 150 m, then every 70 m. Alexander offered to carry my backpack, but I refused. 300 m before the camp we had a longer halt, and I almost fell asleep. They say not to sleep because the body tone will go. So I stood up. Made it.
Then there was some amazing food. Then I was lying still in a cabin.
In the evening, we went above the snow line at 3900 m and exercised in snow walking in crampons up to 4060 m, without a load.
Crampons are the killer. A rocky road impacts knees, while crampons penetrate snow smoothly. The send under rocks slides down as you walk, it takes permanent attention and time to reposition a foot on each step, while crampons stay where they are. Snow walking was way more pleasant. The Russian for crampons is the same as “cats” (“кошки”). I was purring the whole way.
I fell asleep satisfied. Breathing was no problem to me, the only problem was the load, and most of it stays here at the summit camp. Others had their hardest part ahead of them, while I already felt as a winner.
Day 4
When you wake up high, shoot the sunrise.
We went up the slope to Pastukhov’s Rocks at 4700 m. That was just a pile of rocks, beautiful and dangerous.
As the ice melts in the sun, rocks slide and roll down. Last year, two girls had their legs crashed by those rocks, the rescuers had to sled them down. When a rock goes off, everyone shouts “kamen’!” (the Russian for “rock!”). You must freeze, spot it, dodge, and shout to those below on the route.
This does not happen often though. In a few hours I saw this once, a rock was of a giant watermelon size, at a car speed. Luckily, everyone dodged. The problem is, it is absolutely silent on the ice, so there is no sure way to descend safely because you cannot watch your back every 5 seconds.
At halts, everyone must face the mountain and never turn their backs to it.
People often say “You will really understand it at Pastukhov’s Rocks”. But that were those taking the cable car. After the 25 kg backpack for 1500 m, this day with 7 kg and 900 m was a cakewalk. And I did not “understand” anything new except how beautiful it was this high.
It’s a shame we had to give up this altitude we gained already and return to the camp. I was thinking of those with tents instead of cabins. They only go up.
On the way back, we were crossing the springs from the melting glacier. It melts every day except in winter. This feels odd, but in the end of September there is much less snow here than in August.
Sometimes these are whole mountain rivers.
Day 5
This day was for the “rest”. The “rest” started early before breakfast as we practiced catching on with an ice ax when sliding because this can easily happen on the route above the yesterday’s mark.
I damaged my right thumb during this. There was a bruise, and it was aching badly.
We had free time after that, but it was snowing, so I stayed in the cabin.
We went to sleep at 18:00 to wake up at night and set out for the summit. I froze a bottle of water and put it by my thumb for the night. Sure thing, I had no sleep.
Day 6
We woke up at 23:00 same day. The breakfast at 23:20 was perfect because it felt like supper. Everyone took a few bars of chocolate, nuts, dried fruits, and 1.5 liters of sugared tea in thermoses, for glucose.
My bruise got worse. It was not a problem for walking, but I was doing everything slow. I did not tell this to Kamil fearing he would not let me go. Never do that.
Others would wake up at 23:30 to set out at 0:30 for the snowcat which would take them from 4000 to 4600 m. Me, Kamil, and Alexander were walking the whole way again. The backpack was about 7 kg. The standard is 5, but I carried the camera.
We set out at midnight. It is that early because the weather above deteriorates after noon. There is a rule: wherever you are, turn back at 11:00. Sometimes an experienced guide can delay the turn to 12 or 13 depending on the weather, but it’s rare.
Kamil was walking first to set the pace. Alexander was last because he was stronger. I was in between. A few random folks dragged with us, all by themselves without guides. We were not responsible for them, but it was easier for them to stay in our pace. This happens all the time there. We were talking briefly at halts, Kamil gave them a few tips.
It was very cold, and almost all clothes was on me. Every meter was like a game. How far will we get before the snowcat with the rest of the group overtakes us? There’s some snowcat, but not ours, great, we can walk some more. Oh, that’s ours, sad… But let’s go get them. Such checkpoints were entertaining and helpful to move on.
At the first halt, we put on the 2nd gloves and winter coats, otherwise it’s freezing when you stop. Stops were brief, a few sips of tea, some were eating chocolate. I could not eat. We continued with all clothes on.
- On the feet: trekking boots, warm shoe covers, crampons.
- On the legs: thermal pants, fleece pants, membrane pants.
- On the body: thermal top, fleece jacket, membrane jacket, down jacket.
- On the hands: fleece gloves, down gloves.
- On the head: membrane hat, fleece jacket’s hood, head lamp.
Above 4200 m the yesterday’s snow did not melt. It was soft and sliding under the shoes just like on sand lanes. So much for crampons’ benefits.
The first 4 hours were on the familiar path, so I was noting the progress, it was cheering. We were gaining 250 m per hour, which is good. We had to gain 1900 m in total. Me and some other guys were dream to make it 2200 by also going to the eastern summit, a bit lower than the western one where we go. So I was counting down from 2200 m.
The slope was steep, we were zigzagging: 10 land meters one way, then turn, then 10 meters the other way. Turning was terribly inconvenient at a steep lope, but it was yet another metric for the progress.
At last it started to get lighter in the east. One turn in the snake, and it was brighter. Another turn after 20 meters, and it was brighter still. After 50 turns from the first signs it was like this:
And the sun came out a few minutes later, no more head lamps.
The steep part was over. Next is “The Oblique Shelf”. It’s a near-horizontal traversal along that same steep slope. They were saying it was boring because there were no checkpoints there. If the mountain is a cone, think of walking the lateral surface. You can only see 50 meters ahead of you, and then the lane disappears around the corner. Imagine walking 2–3 hours like that with nothing changing at all.
I fantasized of this part to take rest as I go. Boredom is never a problem to me. It is my middle name, my element, and my star sign. Turned out, this lane was taking full attention to not slide down. It was was not as dangerous before because you would slide down the lane you came from. From now on, you would slide down the virgin glacier for a few hundred meters and then fall on bare rocks, thus the yesterday’s training. Two people died here in the spring. So I could not relax.
Alexander got tired, Kamil put him before me. We were walking slower than I could. That was disappointing.
At the middle of the Oblique Shelf, we caught up with our group who took the snowcat. They were suffering. Because of bad snow conditions, the snowcat only got them to 4600 instead of 5100 m. They did not expect that and were not accustomed to that conditions. Three turned back already, others were exhausted.
We halted with the rest of the group.
During the stop, you are not allowed to lie horizontally and must keep your head higher, otherwise you may fall asleep, lose your heat and the body tone. The guides were shaking everyone to not pass out. I ate one stick of Twix.
We resumed and reached the saddle between the two summits. It’s 5350 m. Many dropped powerless when they got there. A long halt, because it’s finally not on the slope and safe.
My thumb ache got stronger. A small bruise expanded, and almost the whole thumb was blue. I showed it to Kamil. He said I can continue if does not impede my walk. I was happy because the whole way I worried only about being sent back.
Surprisingly, the next 200 m were the hardest. It was a steep lane about 35°, a diagonal one, and also hard rocks below, deceptively covered by thin snow. Something changed during those 200 m. I stopped being myself and was watching it all as a movie. I did not care anymore. I was aware that this character can misstep and slide down. If he catches on, good for him, otherwise I din’t mind this movie ending here. I was aware this was abnormal but could not do anything about it. This could be due to food, or lack of food, or because we rested too long on the saddle, or because we were 700 m higher than my last acclimatization hike, more so that is was two days ago and brief.
There was a fixed rope along the lane, you strap yourself to it and go. If you fall, you do not slide but hang on it and climb back. The rope was fixed every 30 meters. Only one person can be on one section at a time. When you strap to the next part, you shout “Vacant!” so the next one can go. To save time, a guide put three of us on the rope, strapped to it and together. That was the hardest part of the hardest part. We had to keep the same pace and keep a half-meter distance because we had only a meter of rope between each of us. Go slower, and you pull the guy ahead and cause him fall. Go faster, and you pull the guy behind, same. With that low oxygen, you only have this much of attention, and maintaining this distance depleted it. I did fall, almost pulled Anton behind me too. We both had to use our ice axes to catch on and climb back.
The last 100 meters were the opposite, a serene heaven. Finally I could see the top and could just walk to it on a shallow slope with any pace I wished. So I made it.
The top is about shouting in celebration, jumping, taking pictures, but not knowing what else to do. So you turn back.
My challenge summed up to:
- The full backpack up to the summit camp.
- Heavier summit backpack with the camera.
- The summit dash from 3750 instead of 4600 m for those with a snowcat.
- No sleep.
- Sore thumb.
- A single Twix stick for food.
On the descent, the “movie effect” got worse, but at least it was taking less effort to go. Kamil strapped me to himself, and we walked down to the saddle together.
The weather deteriorated. The rest of the group were descending to the saddle very slow. A guide was carrying one guy on his shoulder completely powerless, others went to the saddle on their own. Eastern summit — not this time.
The rest was frightful but simple. We had to rush from the wind and snow down, down, down. At 4900 m, we got into a cloud. I could only see 50 m before me, but at least we passed the diagonal “Oblique Shelf”, and it was plain descent.
4700 m was the highest a snowmobile can get, so we called one and took it down to 4100 m. 600 m swept by like a movie fast forward. What took 3 hours two days ago now took 5 minutes. And that is one more piece of experience worth going for. Only Alexander and the photographer went the whole way back on feet.
Only at the camp I realized I did not pee once in the 17 hours, never before in my life.
Next was food.
For the rest of the day I was breathing on every step. I could inhale on 3 steps and exhale on 3 steps if I put my mind on it, but otherwise the body was taking over.
Sleep.
Next day we took the cable chairs and cable car from the camp to the village at the bottom.
What was the takeaway? Nearly nothing. I was there. It’s like defending your thesis at a university: you wait for it and expect a whole new life after it. But nothing changes. Got down and forgot it. Elbrus will never reveal anything to you that has not matured in you by itself.
Then we were eating the remaining chocolate that visited the mountain top for few more days.
I am done with the obstacles. In my world, the mountains do not resist but welcome you. Cable cars and snowcats are good. They were born so that mountains can accept more friends.
The Business
Before the tour, I watched a documentary about Elbrus from a famous Russian journalist:
Among other things, he shows the devastation in the town of Terskol at the bottom. But he misses the reason for it, which is lawlessness.
The snowcat ride costed $85 one way. For a group of 10 people both ways it was $1700. Two groups a day make it $3400, a hundred times the average daily pay in Russia. A used snowcat costs $150k. Even if half the revenue goes to service it, it still pays off in one season.
If anything pays off in one season, there must be a line of people who want to do that business. Competition can improve quality and cut the price threefold. But no one can just get into that business. There are only 4–5 people who work there and push others out. They do not pay taxes. Moreover, it is a national park, and all motorized vehicles are prohibited here. Authorities know they operate and do nothing.
Shelters there are also illegal, the land they are standing on is not rented. Those in power just put the cabins there and get the money.
In cabins, they change sheets once per season, so everyone sleeps in their sleeping bags, not for warmth but for hygiene. The guides say nothing changed there in the last 10 years, except a single legal hotel at 4000 m. Well, that’s good.
The land in Terskol costed $700k per acre even before the post-pandemics hype, 50 times more than in an average Russian village. If there are poor people, it’s only because they mismanaged and blew what fell on them when capitalism came.
If you are not local, you cannot do any business in Terskol. One alien agency purchased the land, built their own hotel, brought in their own guides, drivers, a bus, and all the staff. Locals permanently fight them, puncture their tires, knocked a guide out with a dig to his head, and shattered a photographer’s windshield.
If you want to do business there, you must benefit the locals and create jobs for them. You must bring tourists to their hostels, and at least some of your guides must be local. The agency we went with does that.
On one hand, there are cute locals like the owner of our hostel. On the other hand, I can never understand those who shed blood to preserve their right to not improve the rotten quality of everything around.
I would like to build a hostel there, but I am not good at negotiation. When a local bandit comes, I could not think of anything to speak except “What can you offer to me and how can I save money working with you?” And then in a few days I would catch my dig.
We will have to wait until Navalny fixes this country. It’s so embarrassing that even this beautiful spot desperately needs him.
3 Years Later
I published this original text in Russian on September 30, 2020. Today it is 3 years that I summited Mount Elbrus.
My thumb was aching for 8 more months. No X-Ray or MRI could show the problem. When I went for rehab, it was too late, and I lost 20% of the movement range for my thumb.
The following year, 9 people died on Elbrus, 4 falling and 5 freezing in a sudden storm.
Then the war broke, and I had to skedaddle. I live in Georgia now. I cannot go back to Russia because I donated to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and made it public. Since it was not The Red Cross or anyone else the Russian government can trust to not buy weapons, they can press charges against me any time.
In good weather, I can see Elbrus across the Russian border, 200 km away, and I am very glad I took time to make it.
If you want something, go for it now. You never know if tomorrow you will only be able to watch others reaching your dream.
