Mt Elbrus in Russia

I've been pretty much retired from climbing high peaks since i got married a few years back, but my brother Peter was going and I couldn't pass up a chance to do a big trip with him again. Elbrus is an 18,510' volcano in the Caucasus mountains near the Russia-Georgia border, and it is the highest peak in both Russia and Europe.

After 36 hours of travel, we made it to Azau in the Baksan valley at midnight. Coach class on Aeroflot wasn't nearly as bad as I had envisioned, but Ambien is still highly recommended. We were pretty jet lagged in the morning, but decided to climb Cheget Peak to acclimatize and get a good view of Elbrus, which can't be seen from the valley floor.

Hiking the 5 km road from Azau to Cheget ski area was beautiful with some funky billboards:

At Cheget we took old single chair ski lifts up to a shoulder of Cheget Peak, and then hiked up 1500' or so to the summit. Cheget Peak itself is really only a minor sub-summit of a bigger peak with an unpronounceable name. Going further would require mixed climbing gear and a light rack, but would probably be a lot of fun. The views were outstanding.

We got our first clear view of Elbrus from the top of Cheget Peak.

I stitched together a panorama of the Donguzuran ridge from the top of Cheget Peak that i'll link to since it is pretty large.

Cheget Peak view panorama

After descending, we stopped at a cafe in Cheget to have a beer and a shashlyk - an Uzbek style kebab that is very popular all over Russia. A couple of friendly Bulgarians pulled up in a BMW blasting Eurotrash technopop, and they bought us beer after beer until we begged them to let us leave since we had to start up Elbrus the next day. We don't speak Bulgarian and they didn't speak English, but the beers took care of that problem and we left as good friends.

The next day with a mild hangover we rode up two gondolas and then a precarious single seat chairlift to the top of the Elbrus ski area. The chairlift was really awkward with big mountaineering packs and was probably the technical crux of the trip.

There are a bunch of huts called the barrels near the top of the ski lift at 12,500' that most of the guided groups stay in. This seems crazy to me since it sets up either a 6,000' summit day or a snowcat ride to 15,000'. We hiked up past another hut(Diesel Hut) and camped in the rocks on the right side of the band at 13,800' in the next picture.

The views from the campsite were stunning - particularly of Mt Ushba.

I stitched a large panorama shot, which i'll again link to since it is very large.
Caucasus panorama from camp on Elbrus

We relaxed, melted snow for water, ate, and read the rest of that day and the entire next day for acclimatizing. So far the weather had been perfect, and even a bit hot on the glacier during the day. Both of us felt good and we knew we only had one more good day of weather before a front moved in, so we decided to go for it even though it was pretty aggressive from an acclimating standpoint.

On Tuesday June 1st, we got up at 2 AM and starting trudging. The route itself is a snow climb with no technical difficulties, though it traverses above some steep crevassed slopes so you don't want to fall. The crux is forcing yourself to keep going on a 4,800' summit day with a mile long flat traverse between the twin summits at 17,800' to thoroughly demoralize you. We reached the summit at just after 11 AM, almost totally exhausted but very happy.

I was definitely suffering from moderate AMS at this point, so we descended back to the saddle in what passed for me as a hurry. After some aspirin, gu, and water life was ok again and we descended back to camp in a little less than three hours. Too wasted to go any further, we decided to camp one more night and return to Azau in the morning. The storm we spent the night listening to made our decision to go for it look pretty good.

Peter and I both feel like Elbrus gets a bit of a bad rap, though we think it is mostly because most folks go with guides, stay in the huts, and go later in the season when it is crowded and apparently gets dirty. In late May, it isn't very crowded and feels fairly pristine when you get above the snowcats hauling skiers up to 15,000. It isn't any harder than the Mexican or Ecuadorian volcanoes, but physically it is harder and all around a bit more of an ordeal. We used Pilgrim Tours for visa invitations, border area permits, and transportation from MinVody to the Baksan Valley and highly recommend them. Speaking Russian isn't totally necessary, but survival Russian and the ability to read Cyrillic script are very useful.

After resting in Azau for another day, we traveled back to Moscow for the weekend. Moscow is great fun, though very expensive, and is well worth a layover on the way home.

Sweet, thanks for the great TR! That mountain is definitely on my list. Man, Ushba looks rad... I flew Aeroflot once from Kazakhstan to Moscow and I thought I was going to die.

In case you're wondering, the billboard says "Remember that the world is saved," and it's commemorating the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII (which you probably got from the "65" and the old dudes in military garb...).

Can you give a little more info on costs? Like the flight to MinVody, permits, visas, etc.

Costs:

Flight from Denver to MinVody was $1100, though I booked the ticket really far in advance.

Light package from Pilgrim Tours was $120 per person which included visa invitation, permits, national park entrance fee, one night in a hotel in Azau, and local contacts for help. 4 hour van ride from MinVody to Azau was $60 per person. They also sold gas cartridges pretty cheap, though I don't remember how much.

I used CIBT to expedite my Russian visa since I don't like to be without my passport for long. With the visa invitation letter already received from Pilgrim Tours that was about $300. I think the Russian embassy fees were around $230 of that, but not sure.

Not sure what the mountain hut fees were since I camped. Hotels in the Baksan valley were around $20-30 per person per night and were basic.

Cheget chairlift was around $15, and Elbrus chairlift was around $25.

Moscow is really expensive.

Ushba looks really hard and scary, but it is sure gorgeous. Every peak there except for Elbrus looked at least semi-technical - it could definitely be a rough version of Chamonix.

Tristan Higbee wrote: the billboard says "Remember that the world is saved," and it's commemorating the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII (which you probably got from the "65" and the old dudes in military garb...)

literally, it's more like "the world saved remembers", or because of the play of words could also mean "peace was saved"...

Great TR, Andrew!

Awesome TR Andrew, thanks for posting!

Very cool there, Andrew! I'll read the whole thing later.

Great TR!

Totally jealous, thanks for posting.

Very fun TR, and not just because it's the type of climbing I want to do!