High altitude mountaineering in the bitter cold… or just a long slog? The truth is somewhere in-between. Sitting at 5,642m, Mount Elbrus is Europe’s highest mountain and one of the revered Seven Summits. It is a dormant volcano in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia, close to its border with Georgia. Although the route doesn’t involve much beyond walking, making it to the summit of Mount Elbrus presents a formidable challenge due to its high altitude and often extreme weather. We summited Elbrus late in the climbing season and discovered the difficulties and rewards of climbing Europe’s tallest peak.

Planning and Logistics

Although we generally like to do as much as possible independently, we decided to use a guide for Elbrus. This was less about having a guide for the actual climb (which is technically well within our capabilities), but because of simplified logistics and an easier Visa application process. We chose a Russian company, Pilgrim Tours, because they were significantly cheaper than other international groups. Pilgrim Tours offer two Elbrus programmes: an 8 day and a 10 day. We went with the 10 day programme because I have had issues with high altitude acclimatisation before. I didn’t fancy hallucinating or passing out on another of the Seven Summits!

Our expedition starts off with drama… of course! Three days before leaving for Moscow, British Airways inform us that our flight back to the UK is cancelled due to pilot strikes. They tell us to re-arrange online, but the system won’t let us. We try calling but the robot lady simply tells us that they are “experiencing a high volume of calls” and then drops the call.

We try to get through literally hundreds of times over the next 3 days with no luck. Finally, we get through. They tell us that the earliest we can get a flight back is the 12th September. However, our Russian visa is only valid until the 11th. We need to be out of Russia by then or we face imprisonment in a Russian gulag. It would be an experience for sure, but Tom is not so keen. After a bit of a fight, we finally manage to secure a flight for the 11th.

Moscow

We arrive in Moscow. As expected, it’s a fascinating city. The architecture is incredible, with something beautiful and unusual seemingly around every corner. I particularly enjoy the juxtaposition of the huge, imposing Soviet-era skyscrapers next to the colourful Russian traditional architecture. However, we are surprised by the fact that the city seems to be a showcase of capitalism – not the quite the Communist throwback that we were expecting.

The next leg of our journey is unexpectedly pleasant because we get upgraded to business class for reasons unknown! This is my first experience outside of cattle-class so I am like an excitable puppy. We have large comfy seats, amenity kits (with mini toiletries that I later use on Elbrus) and had a three course meal with Prosecco and strange little fruit shots. The air hostess notices that I am a nervous flyer and offers me “a leetle Valerium”, which I can only assume is Valium?! I gratefully decline.

Mineralnye Vody

We arrive at the tiny domestic terminal in Mineralnye Vody. Our driver picks us up and we pack our bulky bags into his little car. He doesn’t speak English, so it’s a quiet 4 hour drive to Cheget. We stop in the town to get cash out and buy some water for the journey. An old 5 seater Lada taxi pulls in next to us and I watch as eight grown men spill out of the backseats.

We soon leave civilisation and instead drive through miles of flat open plains. The landscape seems foreign and strange. The road eventually winds uphill through the Baksan Valley and into the Caucasus Mountains. It’s now night time, and the already questionable driving becomes noticeably more aggressive. The driver removes his seatbelt as soon as we are off the main roads. I can’t help but think of all the horrible Russian dash cam video compilations I have seen on YouTube. I spend the rest of the journey tense and braced!

Cheget

Finally, we get to our hotel in Cheget. It is fairly basic, but nicer than we were expecting. We are told that we are the only people who have signed up for the 10 day programme so it will just be us and our guide. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. I am disappointed that we won’t have teammates, but am also a bit relieved as it means we won’t be won’t be held back on the mountain or hold anyone else back.

Day One: Cheget Trek

We meet our guide, Roman, at breakfast. He seems nice and speaks relatively good English. We head out for our first acclimatisation trek. This hike goes up Mount Cheget, the summit of which is 3,601m above sea level. This isn’t as impressive as it sounds considering the valley below sits at 2,000m and you get a chairlift half-way up the mountain! The hike is short and easy, and I feel slightly cheated. But it’s our first day at altitude and the views are beautiful. We catch our first glimpse of the expedition’s objective: the summit of Mount Elbrus.

The summit of Mount Cheget lies on the tumultuous border with Georgia, so we are not allowed to go all the way up. Our guide points out the border signs and guard station and tells us we can’t go any further. I ask if we can go just a teeny little bit further and he replies: “There are soldiers and they are angry. With gun. You go to Russian prison. You not like Russian prison“. I don’t argue any further.

Exploring Cheget

We get back down to the valley with a whole afternoon to spare. We sort through our gear and pack up our bags, ready to head up to Base Camp the following morning. There’s still plenty of free time ‘to rest and sleep in the room’ so we go exploring! We find a nice hiking trail in the National Park with some sketchy bridge crossings and spectacular mountain views.

Our walk back goes through the small town of Terskol and I enjoy getting to see how ‘real Russians’ live. There are cows roaming around on the roads, some of the oldest and strangest looking vehicles I have ever seen and even a small banya – a Russian spa where you can get whipped with a tree branch! There are no other tourists around, so we get a lot of stares and curious looks, but I never feel unsafe or particularly unwelcome.

Throughout the day, I have been getting stomach cramps. After dinner, they intensify and I am forced to spend my evening on the toilet. I try to sleep it off before the expedition starts the following morning. However, I wake up at around 1am in some of the worst pain I have ever experienced. It feels like someone is reaching their fiery hands inside me, twisting and pulling on my stomach and trying to make it pop. I spend the entire night wailing in pain on the toilet forcefully expelling the entire contents of my body in liquid form. It wasn’t pretty.

Day Two: Arrival at Base Camp

By morning time, the pain has lessened somewhat so I force myself out onto the mountain. We drive to nearby Azau and get the lifts up to Elbrus Base Camp. I ask if it is possible to walk up to Base Camp instead of getting the lift (I can’t silence the purist within me), but am told simply “no“. We bring our big duffels up and make ourselves at home in our little shack. We put on our big boots and crampons for the first time and start up the mountain for an acclimatisation trek.

It was by no means a fun day for me. I had literally nothing left in my body, was running on zero sleep, was dealing with waves of pain and was constantly paranoid about shitting myself. Thankfully, I felt pretty good altitude-wise. We got up to around 4,200m in really good time and then descended back to the hotel for the night. Throughout the day the cramps had subsided, but as soon as I had dinner they started back up again. I realised that eating was the biggest trigger but was faced with an impossible decision: don’t eat to stave off the pain but have absolutely no energy, or try to eat but be toilet-bound and crippled by pain.

Day Three: Acclimatisation

My stomach is not much better. I have to leave breakfast after only a couple of bites of bread and run back to the room. Unsurprisingly, I am extremely worried about my chances of summit success. But the show must go on, and this is when the real expedition finally begins! We go back up to Base Camp as before, but this time there is no going back down until either we have summited or we have run out of days. We bring up around 15 heavy cardboard boxes of food and supplies for the week, and have a Russian police escort on one of the lifts for some reason. He is very friendly until a bag of crisps in my rucksack explodes from the altitude, making a loud and suspicious bang…

We start our second hike up the mountain. After around three hours, we make it to the lower part of Pastukhov Rocks at around 4,550m. I’m pretty sure we are making good time because we overtake everyone that we encounter. Most of the climbers are Russian military – there seems to be hundreds of them. Mercifully, walking seems to ease my cramps and neither Tom nor I suffer much with the altitude. We descend quickly back to Base Camp and spend our first night in our steel home.

Day Four: Acclimatisation

The aim for day four is to go as far as we can go – without reaching the summit. Our guide wants us to reach the top of Pastukhov Rocks (4,750m) which generally takes about 5 hours. It’s quite a big day, but I am feeling fantastic! My cramps are now only occurring directly after eating and I am feeling the best I have ever felt at altitude. It’s obviously Opposite Day because Tom starts to struggle with the altitude about 4 hours into our hike. We slow down the pace and he powers through. We pass the broken down Snowcat and make it to 5,100m before eyeing up the fast approaching black clouds and deciding to head back.

The hike up takes us 5 hours, and our guide seems pleased with our pace. The descent is more brutal than the ascent for me. A lack of fresh snow cover results in sore, bleeding toes and aching thigh muscles. As we are descending, we hear a strange rumbling. I turn around just in time to see a huge washing-machine-sized boulder hurtle past us, just off the track. It was going unbelievably fast – fast enough that if you were in its path you would have absolutely no time to react and would be doomed to certain pulverisation. We later learned that it had broken off from the Eastern summit of Elbrus, hence the ridiculous momentum. Although we have witnessed many instances of rock-fall in the Alps, this was by far the most terrifying encounter we have had yet.

Friends!

We get back to Base Camp and are pleased to find that another group have arrived. They are a group of three doing the 8 day programme and we will hopefully all be summiting together. The group is made up of Barbara (an American lady who is climbing Elbrus for charity), Hasha (an Indian man who wants to do the Seven Summits) and Nicole (an Australian now living in London who is a triathlete). They are a lovely and interesting bunch of people and we are glad to have some company for our otherwise quiet meals!

Day Five: Rest Day

Day five is a rest day before the huge summit push starts the following morning. For most people, the day is spent practising crampon and ice axe skills on the slopes of Elbrus. However, as we already have plenty of experience with mountaineering skills, we don’t have anything to do! We enjoy a lie in and spend the day sheltering from the driving wind and snow, hoping that the weather will clear before our summit attempt.

My stomach cramps are back, but this time they have a discernible cause (if you thought I was done with the TMI, think again!). My period has come. I am absolutely fuming! I had planned the whole trip meticulously so this would not happen. Practically, being on your period whilst wearing a climbing harness and hiking at altitude in frigid, freezing temperatures for over 10 hours is a nightmare. But for me (and many others), the first few days of my period are particularly debilitating. I get God-awful cramps, a stomach so unsettled that I often end up feverish and I suffer massively from lethargy. I had just started to recover from my mystery cramp-inducing illness, so this development was obviously not so good for my morale.

Cursing my ovaries, I try to distract myself by packing my summit rucksack and getting my clothes ready for the 1am start the next morning. However, my mood is considerably improved when I notice a surprise visitor wondering past our cabin window with a rotting fish head in his mouth. Frederick and his friends provided great evening entertainment as they rummaged through the discarded piles of leftover food and rolled around in the snow.

Day Six: Summit Day

We are up at an unfathomable hour to don our many, many layers and start our big push to the summit. Neither of us got much sleep (which is pretty normal for pre-summit nights) largely due to the fact that one of our roommates spent the entire evening violently throwing up. We eat as much buttery porridge as we can manage, and then set off into the dark. It is a clear but moonless night. It’s so clear that you can see the Milky Way streaming across the star-studded sky. This bodes well for summit day weather conditions, but means that it is bitterly cold.

Another group has joined us – six ex-Russian soldiers and two of their daughters. Our guide positions us behind the 3 person group (Barbara, Hasha and Nicole) and ahead of the 8 person group (Russians). We set off in snake-like fashion, slithering up the cold face of the mountain single-file with only the lights of our head torches to break the deafening darkness. The slog is monotonous – there are no views to be enjoyed and my fingers are slowly going numb. I am eternally grateful for the hand warmers that I shoved into my mittens before setting off. The landmarks that we have come to learn from our acclimatisation hikes are obscured by the shadow of night. We plod on and on, seemingly endlessly.

Sun Rise

Finally, the sun begins to rise behind us. We have made it up the first steep section and are now on the more gentle traverse. The black sky is lit up with burning reds and oranges and is truly one of the most spectacular sights I have seen. I immediately regret not bringing Nigel (my bulky, heavy DSLR) up to the summit before remembering that it is so cold that he would almost certainly not work anyway. Both of the other groups have started to slow down, so we overtake and lead the small army.

For the past few months, I have been visualising the summit push; worrying about how cold it will be, how hard it will be, how much I will struggle with the altitude and how exhausted and miserable I will feel. My extremities are cold, but I feel really, really good. I feel acclimatised, I feel strong and I am so ridiculously happy that I can actually enjoy the summit day instead of suffering my way through it! A quick check with Tom (mostly using scuba diving hand signals as it’s too hard to shout over the wind through our buffs and balaclavas!) confirms that he is feeling similarly good.

Reaching the Col

We watch as the mountain throws its shadow over the nearby peaks. We are already higher than all of the other mountains, with only the twin peaks of Elbrus looming over us. The sky gradually turns from vibrant orange to pastel pink as the sun starts to warm up the surrounding slopes. The wind is biting, but just about bearable.

We arrive at the col between the Western peak (the true summit) and Eastern peak (5,621m) of Elbrus. Here, we stop and get our ice axes out in preparation for the steepest section of the mountain. We wait for our friends who are about 10 minutes behind us. The Russians are further behind, and some members have already turned back. Unfortunately, we have beaten the sun in our race to the col so we must wait in the shade. It is absolutely freezing. I start to lose feeling in my toes and have to perform an energy intensive jig to maintain blood flow.

‘The Hard Bit’

Hasha, Nicole and Barbara join us on the col. Barbara is not doing too well – she is nauseous and cold. Nicole is feeling the altitude. Hasha is tired but is doing okay. We move on up to the steeper snow together and finally reach the sun. The walk suddenly becomes a whole lot more enjoyable! My fingers and toes are thawing out and I can finally truly appreciate the views.

Our friends fall behind as we reach the section of fixed ropes. Tom and I are both still feeling brilliant, and I am ecstatically happy. We sing our way up the slopes and I just can’t stop smiling. Using the fixed ropes is not really necessary for us as we are well used to walking on similar terrain (and far worse!) without protection, but we clip in anyway. Our hands are warm enough that we can quickly and effectively open and close the carabiners, even with our huge mittens.

Summit

After a genuinely pleasant jaunt up the steep section, we reach the summit plateau. The views here are incredible. We are far above the clouds and the sun is drenching the entire landscape with its warm glow. We stop for some water and get moving again, completely re-energised now that we have quenched our parched mouths.

There is a small bump to pass over, and then we can see the summit! This is the first time we have been able to see the true summit. It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when you have been walking for hours upon hours and then finally get to see your end goal looming tantalisingly ahead of you. When you are suffering from altitude or exhaustion, the glimpse of the summit for the final push feels awful and cruel. But when you are feeling good, it brings an intense feeling of joy. You know you are nearly there, and you know that you can do it.

We made our way along the beautiful and mercifully gentle ridge to reach the final 10m steep rise to the summit. It is now 8:15am and we are standing on top of Europe. I’m giddy with joy. We take pictures and soak up the panoramic view. Roman, our guide, lights a celebratory summit cigarette and there are hugs all round. As we have made such good time, it is only us and a Swedish climber with his guide on the small summit.

Descent

Our adrenaline is pumping, so we use the high of our success to carry us quickly and safely down the mountain. As we get back to the summit plateau, we meet Nicole, Barbara and Hasha on their way up. They are tired and struggling, so we cheer them on and tell them how close they are. We know they will all make it. We carry on swiftly down the fixed rope section and stop briefly at the col to shed some layers. The wind has died down and the sun is burning bright. I have gone from being almost unbearably cold to being absolutely unbearably warm!

The descent is actually easier than it has been on our acclimatisation hikes thanks to the fresh snow fall from the day before. I am normally slow and clumsy on descents, but somehow the stars have aligned and my body is functioning perfectly. We make excellent time and are back at camp by 11am.

Back at Base Camp

After changing into slightly less filthy clothes, we have a big Russian lunch with lots of soup and lots of dill! We eagerly await the arrival of our friends, but after an hour they are still not back. Roman radios their guide who tells him that they are just descending to the col. They were only around 30 minutes behind us on the summit, so we don’t understand what has caused them such a massive delay.

The members of the Russian group who successfully summited return at around 2pm. Hasha, Nicole and Barbara return around half an hour later, just as the weather is starting to turn. We finally discover what caused their delay. Hasha had slipped whilst descending the fixed ropes and had slid down the exposed slope, taking Barbara with him. The ‘rescue mission’ of hauling him up had taken a long time, and he was understandably tired and shaken-up after the incident which resulted in a slow pace. Barbara and Hasha had opted to take a Snowcat down the lower half of the mountain, whilst Nicole walked down with their guide.

It was all a bit chaotic at Base Camp, with everyone dealing with all sorts of emotions that were exacerbated by exhaustion. Tom and I decided to descend back to the valley that day (instead of staying at Base Camp which was the plan) as we were back early and still had time to make it back to Cheget. After the initial adrenaline rush and excitement started to wear off, I felt inexplicably sad. I frequently suffer from the ‘post-mountain blues’, but they don’t normally start so ridiculously soon after the summit! I didn’t want to leave the mountains: I wanted to go back up and do it all again.

Day Seven: The Vodka Party

The following day, both of the other groups arrived back from the mountain. We all spent far too long having hot showers and stuffing our faces in preparation for our celebratory ‘wodka party’ that evening.

The party started with a delicious meal of local shashlik and enforced vodka shots – “the first three fast, then slow”. The guides then presented us with certificates and t-shirts. Emotional speeches and raucous toasts ensued! The party really got started when our Russian comrades brought out the cha-cha – a local grape flavoured spirit of unknown but bloody high percentage. The sensible people began to drop out, but Tom, Hasha and I continued the party with the ex-Russian soldiers before moving to the local car park with its car-stereo sound system and truck bed dance floor! Our new Russian friends showed us pictures of them ice diving under frozen Russian lakes, Tom tried to arm wrestle them and we bonded using a Russian-English pidgin. It was a suitably crazy end to an eventful and emotional week.

Final Thoughts

As you’ve probably noticed, our ’10 day programme’ did not actually last 10 days. This is because we had spare days to allow for bad weather and failed summits attempts which thankfully we did not need to use.

Climbing Elbrus was an amazing insight into the commercialised expedition style of the Seven Summits, and extremely different to the mountaineering that we are used to in the Alps. There were aspects of the mountain, climb and set-up that I was not entirely comfortable with (taking lifts, having stinking diesel Snowcats bringing tourists half way up to the summit, burning trash and dumping food waste onto the glacier), but overall it was an incredible and genuinely enjoyable experience. The fact that I coped so well with the altitude and the long, tiring days (even whilst struggling with other issues) has really pleasantly surprised me, and I am so motivated to get on to the next big challenge!