Polish climber, lost on slope of Europe's highest peak, finds way back.

[7summits]

Mon Sep 2,11:36 AM ET
MOSCOW - A Polish climber who was reported missing after being separated from his compatriots during a descent from the peak of Europe's highest mountain survived, authorities in southern Russia said Monday.
 

Jan Burczak, 20, turned up alive after wandering down the slope of Mt. Elbrus and encountering a camp of shepherds, said Arsen Tulupov, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Department in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkariya said.

Russian authorities had said last week that Burczak had fallen into a gorge on the 5,600-meter (18,481-foot) mountain, but Tulupov said the climber had rested in a snow-covered saddle between two peaks after being separated from another climber in bad weather on Aug. 27, when a group of 10 Polish mountaineers were descending the mountain in pairs.

A search party looked for Burczak for five days and his mother came from his hometown of Lublin, the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported. It said representatives of the Polish Embassy in Moscow also arrived in the region to help in the search. Embassy officials were not available for comment Monday.

(sbg) (from Yahoo.com)

[MoT]

I was climbing on Elbrus at this time. Thank God the man was found alive. We thought he was gone for good... Our own summit attempt was thwarted by atrocious weather on the 2nd or 3rd (I think that was summit day). Clear weather all week turned into a nasty cold snap with high winds and zero visibility from Pashtukova rocks up. We reached about 80m below the summit before we realised that if we stood on the top we'd be blown away into oblivion. Summit day was damn long too...

We survived, thankfully - good decision to turn around. It's just a pity that people tend to underestimate Elbrus and other of the 7 summits. This is the second of the so-called 'easy' summits that has turned me down this year due to poor weather. Kosciuszko was the other (although I plan to do Carstenz in 3 years, I'd still like to climb Kozzie in winter time - for the sake of a challenge  ). Still though - I have returned alive and learned from both experiences.

I was under the impression that there were two Poles gone missing - maybe this was just rumours around Azau. One was found and one was still missing on the 2nd. Didn't hear anything until now...

[MoT]

Er, just to let you know I've put up my account of my time on Elbrus

http://www.tightropenet.com/elbrus/index.htm

I could have written a lot more but decided to keep it brief. One or two photos are missing but they'll be up soon.

Now - time to get to work on my Kosciuszko report from June!