Elbrus expedition June '16

Updates and Leader: Stu Peacock
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24th June
Both teams reached the summit of Elbrus at 7:30am this morning. An amazing effort by all. We’ve certainly been blessed with the weather this week. We are now all back at the barrels and will have lunch before descending back into the Valley for hot showers and dinner tonight. All the members are very happy with how everything has gone.

22nd June
Today all the team made it to 4700m the top of the rocks of Pastohov, our goal for the day. 6 of the team had half an hour in the glorious sunshine before heading back down for a superb lunch. The other 11 of the team wanted to see if they could touch 5000m. Well they did better than that by making it all the way to the start of the traverse and celebrated by taking their tops off for a photo… Marta was excused from this. Sorry the picture is a bit hazy my phone steamed up from all the bare flesh…

Tomorrow the team are having a well earned rest and if the weather is kind to us we will make our summit bid Friday morning.

21st June
We had an early departure to the Barrels this morning because the cable car company wanted to shut the electricity off for repairs, so we left the hotel at 7:15 am and were rewarded with our first views of the Elbrus summit. Excitement was brewing. ..or was that last night’s soup…We made a good team effort to load up the supplies onto the cable car and unload at the other end onto a snow cat. The chair lift was not running so we walked for 35 mins up to the barrels. Marta managed to catch a lift on a skidu so got there in record time.

After sorting kit out in the barrels we made our first acclimatisation walk on Elbrus to 4100m. We were back in time for a fantastic lunch. This afternoon we will be doing some skills and then resting at our new sleeping height. Tomorrow we aim to reach the rocks of Pastohov and then spend another night in the Barrels.

20th June
We’re all back at the hotel for a night before heading up to Elbrus. The weather has been good to us and despite the delays with the 4 kit bags we all made it up to Syltrankel Lake on Saturday afternoon. Sunday we all climbed Peak Mukal 3900m, sadly cloud stopped us seeing the complete view of Elbrus east summit, but we got some cracking views of the other amazing Caucasus giants. The staff have done a grand job looking after us and we’ve had 2 nights sleep at 3200m. Tomorrow we head up to the barrels and hopefully walk up to Prijut 11 (4200m).

Both teams are getting along really well.

17th June
This morning we arrived into a very flooded Mineralnye Vody. It appears the UK is not the only ones suffering with this inclement weather. However it didn’t dampen our spirits. Brian, Stephen, Mike and Phil only just made their connection in London due to delays in Edinburgh. Unfortunately their bags didn’t but we are hoping we will get them by 9am tomorrow. Everyone else arrived with all their kit.

We drove for a couple of hours before stopping for some lunch at a traditional roadside café and and sampled some local cuisine which was tasty. Thankfully the weather had cleared up by late morning, so although there are clouds in the sky it’s sunny and best of all we can see snowy mountains.

This afternoon the clients are having a bit of rest time before our evening meal and briefings. We aim to set off for Syltrankel Lake at 10am tomorrow.