Mount Elbrus Archives

Head guide Mark Tucker reports:

The Elbrus 2018 team arrived in Moscow yesterday after a tiring day of travel. As most of the team is still adjusting to the nearly 12 hour (!) time change, we kept things simple with a little round of introductions and a brief discussion of the days ahead.

After a very nice breakfast buffet, we meet with our local tour guide and started our Moscow tour by bus. Then onto Red Square, catching as many sites as we could squeeze in — of course St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin. Last stop the famous Kremlin Armoury, a must if you can. The amount of wealth and history displayed under one roof is mind boggling!

A nice celebration dinner in honor of Madison Mountaineering’s K2 team summit of the second tallest mountain on earth. Top it off with some Borsch and Beef Stroganoff and you are feeling pretty good.

Packing up for the early flight to the south which will get us closer to Mt Elbrus. Everyone is doing great and looking forward to heading to the mountains tomorrow!

On July 12th we were blessed with near perfect weather and climbing conditions when we reached Mount Elbrus North Summit in Russia, the highest peak in all of Europe at 18,506′, and one of the ‘seven summits’ on Earth. David, Matthew, and myself began our climb from our high camp at 11 PM on July 11th, as the elevation gain from high camp to the summit of Mount Elbrus is 6,200′, a big summit day! With a slight breeze we made our way up the glaciated slopes of Mount Elbrus in the dark using our headlamps, up to Lenz Rocks at 15,000′, then onward up the glacier to the saddle which is in between the East and West (highest) summits of Mount Elbrus. We continued on up the West summit to the highest point in all of Europe at 9:30 AM, had unobstructed views as far as the eye can see, it was truly a magnificent day. We then descended back down and reached our high camp in the early afternoon. The following day we descended back down to base camp where we had a nice dinner and shower and slept in our comfortable cabin. Yesterday we drove from the base camp on Mount Elbrus back to the town of Pyatigorsk and had a celebration dinner, now we are heading to St. Petersburg for some sightseeing and then home. It has been a wonderful trip!

Note: This was a ‘North Side’ climb of Mount Elbrus, whereas our regular and other recent programs on are on the ‘South Side’ of Mount Elbrus. Madison Mountaineering has led successful expeditions on both sides of Mount Elbrus, and as a boutique mountaineering guide service we strive to develop customer expeditions for intrepid climbers!

Photos:

Garrett and Matthew gazing at Mount Elbrus from the hotel in Pyatigorsk