Today was another good weather day which I hope continues. Mount Elbrus is known for the sudden change of weather. We did not take the chair lift up today instead we started with a beautiful hike in the woods for about an hour before gradually going up. After 2 hrs it got really intense with up to 60% incline up a wall. What is really interesting is how the government here are taking serious steps to avoid avalanches wiping out the city. We passed by a military tank that is aimed at the mountain in case of an avalanche they hit it and diffuses the avalanches to smaller ice falls that won’t ruin as much.
We had enjoyed the hike a lot, it took scrambling, climbing and a lot of energy to do it but totally worth it. We reached 3000m today a bit lower than yesterday but we started much lower. By doing this we built millions and millions of red blood cells that will help our blood circulation when we go higher. At the highest point we reached today there was a very old observatory, that was used in the Soviet days to watch the boarder with Georgia.
Before we headed down, me, Ali, and Elia were filming a short clip. The team went ahead of us. When we followed them they were way ahead, so we started guessing the way down. We heard Vern saying it was steep so we decided to take the way we felt right. That was very steep, we kept going down and finding that it’s a cliff and keep moving diagonally until we found a safer path. By the time we knew we were on the wrong path, we didn’t want to go back all the way up. So we continued going down until we hit the road and met up with the rest of the team.
From there it was another 2 hours down to where the car was to drop us back to our hotel. This concludes our 2 day acclimatization hikes in the valley. Tomorrow we head up to the huts, Where we will be training and some introduction to the newbies about glacier travel, self arrest, and crevasse rescue. From here onwards I will be using audio blogs from the satellite phone hope it works well.
I will leave you with an amazing song our fellow climber and friend wrote today Abdulaziz (Abz)
“Its like me moe n mass,trying to find nemo in this grass,give them supreme blows when they ask,’cause I’m trying to make my dreams grow with this task,(get em) like all the places I wanna summit,its my vacation you’re running from it,and if they hate it then I love it,(like) some nice racks on a bride,with an ice axe by my side,they’re trying to make us fall but we fight back and glide,weather so cold only the heartless will survive,and yea we’re growing bold b*#%h we departed and arrived,left all my troubles behind,so I can enjoy this damn climb,(with one name,and one game) me n my team work harder than hives,(habeebez) and since we’re right here let’s make our dreams come alive,’cause I’m prepared to attack 40 degrees of incline,and damn right we’re going to do it no turning back no hitting rewind!”
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