“Coming with us to Elbrus?” Well, why not. I spent the winter sweating in Cambodia, so in summer I'll be shivering in the Caucasus. Sounds like a good plan. “I'm in!”
But let's be clear: if my feet start freezing, I'm turning round and heading down. I have no intention of pulling any heroics on that hill. It's enough that at that altitude I'll struggle just to catch my breath.
And so off we went.
To Elbrus. To Russia. With Pegasus – the lowest-cost airline of all the low-cost airlines.
Right after landing in Mineralnye Vody, the barbed wire, the plain-clothes guy with a leather briefcase and the little room you don't get sent to as a reward made it crystal clear what kind of country we were dealing with. Lads, shall we just turn back?
Luckily, Osman saved the day. Our Russian contact cranked up a proper Kabardino-Balkarian disco in the car straight away and promised vodka, beer and shashlik. Then for 10 days he drove us around, fed us, hosted us and kept us entertained. He also took our passports. Who needs a passport when you know Osman, and Osman knows everyone?
First, to Russia as such.
So what did I manage to pick up in those first 12 hours? Cows are a normal part of road traffic. Nobody ever wears a seatbelt, because this isn't Europe, it's Russia. Yellow gas pipes form the backbone of local architecture. And a European toilet bowl concreted into the ground is nothing to be surprised about.
Anyway, when it comes to food, all is still right with the world here. The shops may be smaller than a newsagent's kiosk, but the fresh fruit, the veg and the homemade cheeses… brilliant!
Stock up on supplies and up we go.
Acclimatisation number two.
A three-day trek with a high point of some 3,800 metres. Up there on the meadows, horses graze freely and even let you stroke them. The paths are trodden only by the few mountain folk who pass through, and often we have to find our own way. Because someone must have built those cairns just to piss us off.
But we won't be beaten. Not even by the all-night rain that turned normally calm mountain streams into raging rivers. Well, we waded across with our buttocks firmly clenched.
We got a bit lost, too. Two heads are better than one… more are useless.
But we made it. And the washed-out roads and torn-away bridges in the valley suggested we couldn't have picked a better time for a trek in deserted mountains. The glaciers just happened to be melting a bit faster than usual.
“Disrespectful to the mountain, they say. Look at those Taiwanese. They're taking a snowcat all the way to the top. We're taking the cable car. We can play heroes up there.”
So here we stand at 3,800 metres at Garabashi, and our ribcages, so nicely expanded until now, start gasping for air again. After ten changes to the ascent plan, it's finally clear: climb as high as we can, acclimatise, sleep at Priyut 11 and set off for the summit early in the morning.
The first spanner in the works comes from the “landlord” at Priyut: “Mest net!”
What do you mean, no room, mate? We phoned you ahead.
In the end a room for the two of us turned up and we can carry on upwards. Making red blood cells. And it goes pretty well… in the ruts left by the snowcat. Above the Pastukhov Rocks we turn round and head down. To sleep. Or at least to try.
Hmm, no luck.
It's one in the morning, and half an hour's sleep before the summit push probably isn't ideal. Oh well, we'll see.
I strap on my crampons, pull on my beanie, step out of the door and... Two snowcats are flashing outside the hut and our neighbours from Taiwan are waving at me from the back. They're “going” up Elbrus too.
That really gets your goat. Oh well. We'll do it our own way.
We plod, plod, plod. For 4 hours now. “Bloody hell, that slope didn't look this endless on the map.” I lean on my ice axe like an old granny and wonder in vain where I've put my lungs. I can't feel the toes on my right foot. My snot has frozen into my beard. And for getting that dried apricot down I'd deserve a Piolet d'Or.
Watch out, snowcat!
About the fifteenth today.
And instead of giving those “mountaineers” waving from the back the middle finger, I wave back. Bloody mittens!
The sun comes up. Finally, the traverse. It should be plain sailing now.
It isn't.
We keep overtaking someone, then they overtake us again, and the hill seems to have grown overnight. Morale is gone. We're done. Turning back. This isn't fun any more. And I'd probably throw up any minute anyway. We're heading down.
Squeezing through a crowd and getting honked at by snowcats – that's really not what I'm after. We'd rather clear off to some deserted hill. Just because. To have a nice evening.
And that's just what we did.
As soon as we'd more or less pulled ourselves together, we pack the tent and sleeping bags and make a run for it. Well, run… more like limp. Elbrus must have squeezed us dry. On top of that I've got a cold, so I keep swallowing one garlic clove after another. It burns like hell. And what burns heals, right?
On the meadow above the weather station we can barely put one foot in front of the other. Above us, once again, is Elbrus. I collapse among the boulders like a sack of potatoes: “This is where we stop!”
Evening is drawing in and there's no one around.
Except for those old telegraph poles. “Hey, shall we make a fire?”
Judging by how few were left, we probably weren't the only campers with that idea. So: dry grass, a fire steel, and how did that old scouting handbook put it?
It's burning!
At 3,000 metres below the glacier. Deserted four-thousand-metre peaks all around us. We're completely alone here. Totally wrecked, curled up around the fire. The best evening of my life. And I don't even need Elbrus for it. No rush in the morning. So a dip in the little lake, lazing in the sun, and around noon we can start packing. Osman is already waiting for us.
On the way to Mineralnye Vody, Osman treats us to one last slalom between the cows. A Lada fleeing a police patrol whizzes past us on two wheels, and a girl waves from under a tree, offering herself for 500 roubles. 150 Kč. Good thing we slept through the journey there.
Spasibo, Osman. It was awesome.
And now come on, lads. Before they bill us for those telegraph poles.
text and photos: Honza Navrátil
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