To the Summit of Europe: Elbrus, June–July 1999

Slowly the surrounding hills turn into mountains while the rain plunges down from heaven.

"IIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" is the desperate sound our windscreen wiper makes during its fierce attempt to move from left to right. Finally it succeeds in making the road visible for about half a second. About 5 seconds later it manages it again while the heaven itself seems to fall from the sky. Our driver races with undiminished speed across the little mountain roads, not being inconvenienced by any sign of fear of oncoming cars and steep abysses.

Just before this shower started we missed a Russian lorry driver -who did not mind the meaning of the stripes that divide the roads into two halves- by an inch and I am seriously starting to wonder if we ever going to see Mt Elbrus at all. The 'summit' of Asia, Everest, is known for the fact that 10% of summiteers does not make it back down alive; would the people who only want to get near the 'summit' of Europe face the same odds?

To the Summit of Europe

The report of a 14-day trip to the Caucasus, to climb Mt Elbrus: the highest point of Europe and therefore one of the '7 summits'. Main players: Niall from Johannesburg, Gleb, Nickolai and Natascha from Moscow, Saskia & Harry from Amsterdam.

Amsterdam, 26th July 1999

We get up at 6 in our brand new house, find our way through the piles of boxes, pull the door shut behind us and leave for Schiphol airport. We moved 5 days ago and already we are leaving our latest gain for two weeks to find another highpoint: Mt Elbrus with 5642m the highest mountain of Europe.

We had no time to prepare for this trip -as usual - and have no idea what the current value of the Russian Ruble is. There's no official exchange rate in the newspapers and the banks in Amsterdam also had no idea. When even the airport bank has no clue we just enter our plane, armed with a bunch of US dollars (7summits currency…).

After a nice flight of a few hours we land at 'Sheremetyevo international airport Moscow' where we are introduced to the afterpains of good old communism: out of 20 available booths only 2 are being used to check our passports -while about 30 people are walking around very busy doing nothing- and we have to wait 45 minutes to get our first stamps of the season.

When you want to visit Russia (and there are many excuses to do so) you will need a visa; in the Netherlands we had to pick this up at the Consulate in The Hague. But the moment you enter the dark little room your enthusiasm will be killed by annoyance: long waiting lines without any clear order, no directions on what forms to fill out and a few people working who don't seem to enjoy it.

So we were warned about the bureaucracy before coming here, but once we get in the country it's quite different: during the rest of the trip we find out that the average Russian is much nicer than their fellow countrymen in The Netherlands of at the airport.

After the check we collect our luggage and break our way through a hundreds of Russian, mostly illegal cabdrivers, who try to whisper us into their old cars and their way into our wallet. A few dozen people are armed with little cardboard signs with the name of a person or a travel agency. Just when a slight uneasy felling is crawling under my skin, a mix of uneasiness and culture shock, I notice Gleb, one of the owners and guides of Pilgrim Tours. I had arranged the entire trip via Internet and email and transferred a large sum of money to an American (!) bank amount, modern or naïve?

After we have waited another hour and a half we see Niall who is wriggling his way through the overheated mass of taxi drivers; we had never met him, but he looks remarkably like the picture he emailed us a few days ago. Besides that, his length of 2 meter also helps…

Niall lives in South Africa and has climbed Aconcagua last year with my good friend Robert, who I climbed Mt Blanc with. He also scaled Kilimanjaro and therefore he will try to climb his 3rd of the so-called 7 summits here in Russia. Since Dick Bass climbed these mountains, the craze for collecting them has spread like a virus though the mountaineering community and beyond. It also has put Mt Elbrus on the map, as most people (still) think that Mt Blanc is the highest point of Europe. But with it's 4807m it actually is not even in the top 10 as besides Elbrus there are other giants as well hidden in the beautiful but war-torn Caucasus.

The heat wave that has struck all of Europe has also taken over Moscow (32°C) and our Hotel Rossia resembles more a kiln than a hotel. But it is a kiln with 5 restaurants, a sauna, souvenir shops, a hairdresser and most of all over 3000 rooms, so if you want to spent 8 years in one hotel without spending one night in the same room, this is the place…

But it is certainly a nice place to stay, as it is adjacent to the Red Square and the Kremlin and not too expensive if you eat somewhere else.

The Ruble exchange rate is not a secret after all, you get about 25 for a dollar and this does not change at all in the next few weeks, so it almost seems that the financial markets have shifted to a lower gear again.

When exploring this enormous hotel we suddenly bump into an empty room with some tables set for dining. After fruitless discussions about the meaning of the Russian menu we negotiate our way in to a 150-ruble chef's surprise meal. It tasted really good, but when we wanted to get the same deal the next day, the door was closed and the receptionist one floor up denied there was a restaurant at all!?!

There's plenty of western influence in the center of Moscow: next to the Kremlin is a huge pop concert and many thousands of barely dressed girls and tipsy boys are swinging on the beats of a Russian boyband, while in the breaks the Vengaboys are heard over Lenin's tomb…

Moscow, 27th June

Back in the warm hotel we went to bed exhausted, but hear the faint ringing of telephones all night. Let's ask Niall if he heard them as well.

" Did you hear all those phones ringing?"

"Yeah, tell me about it, every few hours my phone rang!"

"Ah, and who was calling?"

"All nice friendly ladies who were worried about me and wanted to help me with my loneliness"

After further investigation it became apparent that the friendly Russian women had contacted not just Niall, but everybody in a single room… seems that capitalism and marketing are commonly used nowadays.

The breakfast buffet is very good, after having our little room card registered in a big book, we are allowed to make our choice from a full English breakfast including potatoes, cornflakes, sausages, pancakes and a salad bar. To recover form this and the fact that 8 o'clock is quite early (our biological clocks were still at 6) we take a little nap.

But a few hours later we find ourselves wandering on the famous red square in front of St Basil's cathedral, probably the most well known building of Eastern Europe and always the background for any news report from Moscow. The legend says that Ivan the Terrible had the eyes of the architects Barma and Postnik taken out right after finishing it so they would never make anything more beautiful…

We try to get a coke in a bar that is disfigured by a giant replica of the Eiffel tower (' for all your Bar Mitzvah's') but have to be patient as there are 3 other clients and the waiter seems to be quite tensed en looks like he is going to flee the scene.

We enter the Kremlin; the huge space with it's many Cathedrals, the governmental buildings and the "Armory" museum. Most Russian citizens will never see this from up close because of the steep entrance fees: 200rubles each + 30 rubles for the photo permit (!) and another 280 rubles for the museum and another 40 for the photo permit for the museum (sigh…). But it very beautiful, from the gold domes of the cathedrals to the biggest caliber canon (890mm), never used though. Just a few meters further on we see the world's biggest bell; unfortunately a piece came off when the great fire of 1737 was extinguished. A smart Russian turned it in to a wishing well (covered by wire-netting) and now you can get a better life for just a few pennies.

That life will be much shorter if you dare to leave the sidewalk by the way, as your heart will miss quite a few beats by being scared back onto it by the loud whistles of the many guards. Of course they have to be careful as Boris Jeltsin is somewhere in these buildings (the Kremlin Bar?).

It is still over 30 degrees out here and we are glad to find some shade in the museum. It is filled with weapons, jewelry, fairytale coaches Faberge eggs and historical wardrobes, very nice and quite impressive.

We conclude our Kremlin tour with a walk through the gardens en decide to be real tourists and walk to the nearby Arbat street. This is probably the most western street in Russia, filled with restaurants (including a 'MakDonalds'), souvenir stalls crammed with Matruschka puppets. Their popularity is something that amazes the Russians still, as originally they are from Japan, not Russia. We go for some Russian food and score 4 pita breads with Shoarma (Niall took 2).

The warm weather is tiring and slowly we walk through deserted little streets towards a large cathedral situated on the banks of the Moskva river which had been used as a bathing place recently, but now it is being restored to it's original condition and function. We try out the Iridium phone Niall brought and it works perfectly while we doze away on a quiet park bench.

"What's that?" Niall looks suspicious at the little plastic bag filled with liquorice I take out of my pocket.

"It's 'drop', typical Dutch candy, but every foreigner I ever offered it to immediately spat it out with a distorted face!"

"I will try some….. hmmmm, nice!" And so Niall proves the historic connection between the Dutch and South Africa on a hot sunny day in the center of Moscow by being the first foreigner to like drop…

The heat of the last few days releases itself in a sudden thunderstorm and large drops of cool rain surprise us before we reach the hotel. As 'our' restaurant never existed and the other in-house facilities are extremely pricey we try to get some food elsewhere. Just a block north east of the hotel is a little bar where after some gesturing we are treated with a selection of Russian tapas and a good glass of beer! A quick walk to Red Square for some pix and a call to Robert, our friend who couldn't make it, finish off our evening as we have to get ready for an early rise for our departure to the Caucasus!

Moscow, Monday 28th June

Niall has had quite some calls from girlfriends to be last night and is looking tired when he appears at the breakfast buffet. After a good meal I help him separate his huge bags into two piles: useful and too heavy.

Our transport is waiting outside the hotel and we meet the other climbers that will be traveling with us to the mountains: 4 Americans that have booked the fully organized trip to climb Elbrus; Nate and Daniel are two young boys who will be attempting the summit of Europe with Nate's father; the 4th person, Phil, is a true summit collector: in his forties and already climbed 4 other continental highpoints, including Antarctica's Mt Vinson. He had been to Everest as well, but had to abandon his summit attempt at 8000m because of altitude disease. Their guides will be Gleb and Natascha; our summit guide Nickolai will join us later.

Our van takes us to Vnukovo airport where we arrive in time thanks to the wide Russian highways. To avoid both theft and damage we are advised to have our bags wrapped in huge sheets of thick paper, which are tied up with thin ropes! Even though Niall left quite a lot of stuff at the Hotel he still has to pay a few hundred rubles for the excess weight.

An airport shuttle takes us to the Tupolev 34 from Mineralnye Vody Airlines, where all of a sudden a no photo policy seems to be in order as angry, shouting faces appear the moment I take my camera out of my case. Well I guess then it has to be a secret hipshot…

MV Airlines has little appreciation for the 'funfactor' of flying as becomes painfully clear the moment we are having some drinks served. When the stewardess asks me what I want to drink I answer with a smile and

" A Fanta please!"

After a sigh and a glance at the ceiling she looks at me angrily and asks impatiently:

"Mineral water or cola?"

The choice of lunch that's served is not too wide either, but the only choice, a lonely sandwich with beef tastes good; vegetarianism is probably considered a luxury here.

After a nice 2hour flight and a bumpy landing we touch ground in the also hot-aired Mineralnye Vody where we are being torpedoed by groups of taxi drivers and beggars. They know that any westerner coming here has enough money for a Gore-Tex jacket and therefore more than enough for feeding their children… We try to stay friendly but this is not appreciated; even a dropped water bottle is snatched away, drunk half empty in seconds and refused to return. We have had it with these people and decide to enter our waiting van even though it is hot inside. Inside we find 5 people waiting already; it seems to be normal here that any person wanting to hitch a ride just enters a waiting car -it will ride anyway- but our guide Gleb is relentless and has everybody who did not pay exit the vehicle.

As it is not possible to transfer fuel for our stoves on the plane our bottles are still empty and we have to find a pump nearby as Gleb tells us that the gas in the mountains is of poor quality. Niall and I empty a 1.5 liter bottle of mineral water each within minutes and amaze the curious pump attendant by asking him to refill it with their best gas: octane 92. This will turn out to be not quite what we expect fuel to be, especially the special colored effects when burning are bonus, but hey, what can you expect for $0.10 per liter?

Slowly the surrounding hills turn into mountains while the rain plunges down from heaven.

"IIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" is the desperate sound our windscreen wiper makes during its fierce attempt to move from left to right. Finally it succeeds in making the road visible for about half a second. About 5 seconds later it manages it again while the heaven itself seems to fall from the sky. Our driver races with undiminished speed across the little mountain roads, not being inconvenienced by any sign of fear of oncoming cars and steep abysses.

Just before this shower started we missed a Russian lorry driver -who did not mind the meaning of the stripes that divide the roads into two halves- by an inch and I am seriously starting to wonder if we ever going to see Mt Elbrus at all. The 'summit' of Asia, Everest, is known for the fact that 10% of summiteers does not make it back down alive; would the people who only want to get near the 'summit' of Europe face the same odds?

A few hours later the skies have cleared again and we arrive at the Cheget Sport Hotel: half finished and totally abandoned except for a few cooks. Fortunately they were expecting us and have prepared a nice meal. In the meantime we have met the two mountain guides Gleb and Natascha: Nikolai will accompany us during our summit day on Elbrus and Natascha will guide the 4 Americans during the entire week. I booked just the trip, transfers and a guide for summit day and we will spend the rest of the week on our own, exploring the area. But tonight we are still together and while the first bottle of Vodka is already empty we enjoy the cozy atmosphere.

After dinner we take a little walk to a nearby spring where the mineral water is carbonated when it's exiting. While the sun sets and the temperature quickly follows we hike on to Terskol, a little village popular in winter by skiers and boarders. Now everything seems deserted, but the newly built bar is open and serves us some nightcaps.

Cheget, 29th June

We get up early (6.30), try one of our homemade cereal-with-milkpowder-&-sugar-breakfasts and leave for a day hike to the summit of mount Cheget, 3430m high and situated next to the hotel. Nice farm roads take us up but after a while it seems that they are taking us the wrong way and we decide to continue through the grassy slopes in the direction of the chairlift. We take a little break at the remains of its predecessor and enter a game with a local sheep: let's stare at each other until one of us moves… sheep loses!

We continue in a steady pace and just before we reach the abandoned chairlift station at 3000m we decide to eat some lunch.

"Niall?"

"Yeah?"

"Here's the soup, can you hand me the stove?"

When his head emerges from his daypack he looks at us apologetically:

"Ehhm, I got the stoves and some pots, but I think I left the fuel at the hotel…"

There we are, the grand world travelers and mountaineers with our little packet of instant soup… So we decide to skip the entrée and get right to the tasty knäckebröd with tuna.

What was left of the track now has disappeared totally and we scramble our way to the summit. Most is scree, some larger rocks and a snowfield every now and then, but the weather is holding out nicely, the silence is overwhelming and the views are great.

The last few hundred meters require some hands and feet scrambling, but is it worth it. Saskia decides to rest on a large buttress; Niall and I continue though the snow to the summit. Just when we arrive we are suddenly being hugged by a bearded Russian who appeared from nowhere. He tries to convince us to join him over the narrow ridge to the next summit, but the weather is deteriorating quickly and after I point at my watch and the clouds, he nods and joins us down.

We take another route down, and pass a beautiful glacier lake where we spend some time relaxing in the grass, enjoying some majestic fourthousanders, who are just being pretty, undisturbed by lifts, villages or trails.

Back in the hotel we test our second stove and produce a large portion of Hutspot with hamburgers for an amazed Niall. The receptionist points us to the basement where the Deep Purple bar has attracted a few locals, but they only communicate to their beers and Vodka and after one Elbrus beer we call it a night.

Azau, Wednesday 30th June

50 Rubles take us and our luggage to Azau, the end of the road and the beginning of the cable car at the foot of Elbrus. We are told that later that afternoon the second stage of the cable car will be stopped for the next few days for maintenance and we doubt: if everything goes as planned we will be able to take the cable car in the weekend. But this is Russia and rumor has it that not everything that is being planned here actually happens…

The Americans don't take the risk and ascend with the cable car right away to acclimatize and do a first carry, but we decide to make a 2day trip to the Azau glacier first.

There are quite a lot (unmarked) trails in the Caucasus, but few of them can be done without axe and rope, especially in the beginning of the season. The path we take through the Azau gorge to the glacier is eroded and huge parts are just completely gone and many times we just scramble along the river over large boulders and screefields. But the weather is beautiful, the steep walls of the gorge amazing and we feel like kings…

After a few hours we reach the glacier that even since our recent map was made has receded quite a bit, and the wild and cold glacial river now cuts off the track we are supposed to follow. We climb the glacier from the side but decide that it will be too dangerous to traverse it and the screefield on the other side, so instead of camping on the 'campsite' that is supposed to be at 3000m, we put up our tents on a nice field close to the glacier. At 2500m it is not the altitude we had in mind for acclimatization purposes, but the view is magnificent and as there are no other human beings around, we enjoy the greatness and peace of the mountains.

Azau Valley, Thursday 1st July

After a nice sleep we wake up in another day of blue skies and the frost of the night is chased away quickly by the first comfortable sunrays. We pack our stuff and slowly head back through the valley towards Azau village. Niall trips twice on the rocks but the damage is limited to a bloody hand and a bruised knee.

When we arrive at the cable car station we meet the Americans again. They made an acclimatization hike to 3800m which went well. Just Phil, the oldest and most experienced of the lot seemingly forgot his sunglasses and now suffers from snow blindness. We are told that also the first part of the cable car will be stopped for maintenance; it covers the first boring, hot and dusty part of the trail and as we don't feel like hauling up our full packs over the hot scree we readjust our plans and join the group up., leaving excess gear in the small hotel at the station.

At the first station at 2970m our ways separate; the Americans are only carrying light daypacks and they continue quickly to the "Barrels" a set of huge oil drums that houses 4 persons each, located at 3800m.

We take some time to dress up for the next part next to some Russian mountaineers who happily celebrate their summiting with a bottle of champagne.

Slowly we continue up the slopes toward the second cable station, "Mir". Our packs are heavy and the track steepens, especially the last snow slope before Mir where we zigzag up scares Saskia. Guided by a trail of empty Vodka bottles dropped from the cablecar onto the snow we arrive around two o'clock at Mir. As the gondola is our of service for the next few days, we decide to erect our tent inside the station.

To acclimatize some more ('Go High, Sleep low') we hike up toward the Barrels and pay the Americans a visit. Natascha serves us some tea and just before dusk enters we run down the empty ski slope (20minutes!) between the Barrels and Mir.

After a large portion of Bami Goreng with Falafel we feel the temperature dropping fast and we shiver ourselves into our tents. In the last light of day I had seen a lonely climber below Mir; it appears to be a Russian who joins our little camping spot making a lot of noise before he finally goes to sleep. But the Mir itself is the real annoying one here as some generator is making a constant noise at an irritating frequency and I don't sleep much all night.

Mir Station- Priut 11, Friday 2nd July

I'm not sure if it is the bad night or the altitude, but this morning I don't feel too well. We warm up our socks and shoes in the first rays that penetrate Mir's dirty windows and enter a completely incomprehensible conversation with our Russian colleague. He doesn't carry a stove and is clearly happy with the mug of hot tea we offer him.

Fully packed we step up to the Barrels where we are welcomed by the stereotypical signs of snowboarders: Loud grunge & house music! And yes, a large group of Russian youngsters totally satisfy the conditions for being a non-conformist snow lover: tiny beards, shorts and volume at 10. The sun has improved the weather so much that the girls are tanning in their bikinis while we enter the camp in our full gore-tex!

We are pointed toward a well that is dug out in the snow where we can refill our bottles with water. We continue over the immense Gabarashi glacier while every now and then a snowboarder comes down via improvised ramps and jumps.

After about an hour we reach the sad remains of Priut 11. This huge hut, once built for scientific research even survived the German invasion, but in the summer of 1998 it burned down completely. A climber tried to put out a small fire in the crowded kitchen area with the first liquid that was around. Unfortunately it was not water but fuel, a substance not known for its extinguishing features, and soon all that was left of Priut 11 was a smoking steel frame and a few brick walls. According to some climbers this was actually a blessing for the mountain as it was no fun place to be due to the enormous smell rising from toilets and trash dump in the back…

We lunch in the ruins but soon discover that there are no nice camping spots and walk across the snowfield to the parallel rock ridge. There are two little emergency shelters and a few good spots where our tents will be happy.

We can feel the altitude now, especially Niall and I have no appetite and we just take some soup to hydrate; my headache returns and while the tents start to flap in the upcoming wind I can't wait to go to sleep.

Priut 11- Azau, Saturday 3 July

According to plan the cable cars are running again and as we are in no hurry we decide to spend a night in the small hostel near the Azau cable station in the valley. We stuff everything in Niall's tent and walk down the glacier towards the Barrels where the Americans tell us that they will try to summit this night. Even the chairlift between Barrels and Mir is working and we hop on. When we arrive at Mir we cannot believe our eyes: we see a few beautiful Russian women suffering half naked in the cold snow for a bathing suit report! Anyway, at least this mountain is not boring…

After arguing with a few lift attendants about the validity of our lift ticket we arrive in Azau where we decide to free some of the local outdoor shopkeepers from some food: "4 schaslicks, 2 cola, a Fanta and 2 pancakes please!" Totaling to 152 Rubles it's quite a feast for a few bucks and after taking a shower and crawling into a soft bed mountaineering in Russia doesn't seem to be that hard anymore…

Azau - Priut 11, Sunday 4th of July

At 8 we enjoy a Russian breakfast: a kind of meatball with cabbage, bread, cheese, butter, tea and lemonade, very good! After a refill of all of our bottles we buckle up and enter the cable car that is now completely filled with Russians that come to see the mountain for the weekend, in their training suits and armed with big old cameras. It's only 10 when we jump out of the chairlift at Barrels where we use the despicable excuse of ' we already did this part, with full packs!' to charter a snowcat that will take us close to Priut 11 for just 50 Rubles. 15 Russians take their chance and hop aboard without chipping in as it is going anyway.

So before it is even 11 o'clock we are back on our camping spot where 5 Russian men with large bottles of beer tell us that they are rescue rangers and that we are not allowed to sleep in their cabins ("except the woman"). We don't care as we have our tents, but a few minutes later it is clear that for $5 each we can sleep there if we want, but we prefer our own material. We are not the only one as soon every campable spot is covered with Russian tents from people who want to conquer Elbrus in the weekend; this also explains the sudden presence of the rangers, it seems that many people have to be taken down as they underestimate this giant.

We take it easy but around 15.00 we head out for an acclimatization hike to the Pastukhov rocks at 4800m. On the way we encounter Gleb and the Americans who are returning from the summit, totally beat. Everybody made the summit on their independence day but they admit to have taken a snowcat in the morning all the way from the Barrels to the base of the rocks at 4600m; the last 1000 vertical kilometers took them another 9 hours. We continue toward the rocks, each in our own pace and an hour and a half later arrive at 4800m, just as high as the Mont Blanc, the highest point of the European Alps. We feel quite ok and descend satisfied. A sudden incoming cloud treats us to one of Elbrus' famous whiteouts, but we manage to find our tent back. In the evening it starts to snow and hail: back to bed.

Priut 11, Monday 5th July

The morning brings blue skies again, although our tent is covered with a little layer of snow from the night before. It's ideal for our last acclimatization- and rest day: just hanging out, doing nothing but reading, melting snow and see how the last of the weekend mountaineers pack their tents after their mostly unsuccessful summit bids. Late afternoon we are alone again when we see Nikolai approaching our tent, just as arranged. When we show our amazement about his 'Lhotse sweater', Cho Oyu head band and 'Everest daypack' and many other things he brings he tells us that he has been coach of the national Russian climbing team for years. Natascha was one of his pupils and he has been climbing on 5 '8000-ers' together with famous climbers like Boukreev. Only when back in the Netherlands I will find out why he does not like to talk about the high mountains: in 1997 the trip leader and a good friend of his had died on Lhotse during a storm on the summit ridge, during an attempt to do the first total traverse of it.

Nikolai is not alone; he brought another Russian climber named Oleg. They appear to be old friends, but soon we find out that they only encountered each other two days before; it seems that in Russia friendship can be formed less complicated but might be more durable than in our Western world…

"Nikolai, you are just in time for our traditional pre-summit pasta meal!"

"No pasta, I bring summit food!"

"?"

Nikolai opens up his daypack in one of the shelters and a few bags of mashed potatoes, a can of peas, milk powder, butter and a canned meatball appear. Everything disappears in his old and dented pot together with a big splash of water and soon we are being served, accompanied with some bread he brought up as well.

"Summit food", Nikolai explains and points to the mixture.

We eat the fat and tasty food inside the second cabin and Nikolai tells us that the locals refer to it as the 'corncob' as it is the old body of an airplane that that was used to spray the cornfields in Russia. It snows and hails outside and we decide to hit the sack early, although Nikolai makes clear that that is not necessarily at all, but he joins Niall in his tent, leaving Oleg in the Corncob.

Summit night: 4200-5642m-4200m, Tuesday 6th July

At 01.30am the nerves are getting to Saskia and she goes out to pee.

"It's all cloudy out there", she shivers while reentering the tent. Gleb and Nikolai told us last night that any summit bid would be dependent on the weather: if it's clear than we will go, if it's too cloudy or windy than we won't.

If another 30 minutes my watch starts beeping I nervously stare outside the tent to check the skies: pitch dark skies filled with stars!

After getting dressed we eat our breakfast in the corncob: tea and porridge, but as always this does not really enter well in the middle of the night and I don't take much. At 03.00 we leave without turning on our headlamps: the reflection of the half moon and the many stars on the glacier is light enough and even in the middle of the night we already enjoy a tremendous view over the West Caucasus.

Just before the Pastukhov rocks we attach our crampons; although the track will never be steeper than 30° the snow is frozen solid and we have to be careful. While we slowly and quietly continue the colors on the horizon change slightly and when we emerge above the rock at 4900m the first sunrays warm the mountains. The view over the endless chain of mountains is framed with a color play of the sun chasing the cold night away and the shadow of mighty Elbrus can clearly be seen over the western part of the Caucasus.

Although the world is getting more beautiful, the pace is going down. The track that could already be seen from Mir and looked quite simple is tougher when you get close. The 'turn left' appears to be a many kilometers long stretch, and while traversing over the steep foot of the east summit, the 'flat part to the saddle' is going up after all…

Once on the saddle, the pass between the two summits of Elbrus, we see the remains of a small hut. Nikolai tells us that the Germans destroyed the hut, climbed the mountain and reported to their HQ that 'the Caucasus was conquered'. I guess the following winter proved them quite wrong.

After a short rest on the saddle we continue our way onto the steep side of the west summit. It's a simple but long traverse north but the now warm sun is teaming up with the altitude to make it harder for us and every 10-20 steps we have to take a breather. After passing a few rocks we turn west and head up the last part of the slope directly. Here a strange mountain phenomenon takes place that I head seen on Kilimanjaro before and what I called the 'casino-horses': in the casino there often is a table where mechanical horses race one round, and mostly just a few move at one time and only the last seconds it is clear who gets to the finish first. On mountains like Elbrus everybody has their own pace, number of steps before they take a breather and their own line of ascent. This results in the group moving in jerks, which if it weren't so hard at the time would be a very funny sight I am sure.

When we reach the top of the slope we see for the first time today two other climbers, they are on their way down. We congratulate them, and look in the direction they are pointing us towards. We are on a large summit plateau with 3sub-summits. One to the south, one to the southwest and one straight ahead, to the west. Together we take the last few hundred steps toward this last one, as it is the highest and therefore the true summit of Elbrus. Nikolai and Oleg gracefully step aside and give us the honor to walk up the last 10 vertical meters: 10.30 and we are on the summit of Europe!

Saskia and I discharge with a loud outcry of joy; suddenly our legs are firm again. The temperature is exactly right and the altitude has no effect on us. Look mom, I am on top of the world!

Most of the valleys surrounding the mountain are filled with clouds by now but the beautiful Caucasus peaks are poking through proudly. This is one of the things that make it all worthwhile: independent of the beauty of the trip itself, the feeling you get on these high spots where you can only go down cannot be matched by anything else.

The weather is still nice and we take a bunch of pictures in changing compositions, standing around the summit marker: a metal triangle with a metal axe and gun. In the old days Lenin used to guard the summit, but it is feared that he took an involuntarily nosedive off the north side of the mountain when the wall came down…Daniel, one of the two young Americans left his picture on the summit and is smiling from the marker.

Niall gets out his satellite phone and family and colleagues are being called from the summit of Europe with incredible clarity. Nikolai is really amazed:

"I have seen many strange things on this mountain, including a Landrover that was dropped by a helicopter and crashed on the way down, but you are the first people I see calling from the summit!"

After spending half an hour on the summit we decide to go down again; the snow has become quite soft due to the strong sun and stick under our crampons. As it is safer without them we take them off and carefully begin our descent. The exhaustion is taking over Saskia and on the steep part towards the saddle she suddenly gets scared. But Nikolai already noticed it; he takes out a short rope and guides her securely down. I am glad I did bring my axe and use it to go down the soft snow on long traverse safely.

When we arrive at the saddle the sun has reached it as well and the temperature feels tropical. All the water is finished; again I brought too much chocolate and not enough water!

Niall and Oleg continue down immediately, I follow a few moments later with Nikolai and Saskia. Even when going down the length of the trail is very tough and Saskia softly starts crying from exhaustion. Even though the normal route on Elbrus is technically not difficult, the length and the altitude combined with the ever-changing weather make it a dangerous mountain.

We encounter one little cloud on our way, but the view is mostly good and around 14.00 we reach camp again. Nikolai and Oleg continue down right away, but we feel too tired to pack up everything and decide to stay on the mountain for one more night. In the afternoon the wind s suddenly increase in strength en we have to crawl inside to finish the cooking of our pasta with spicy tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese. While we enjoy our meal the wind turns into a storm and we have to get out again to fortify our tents. Normally the winds are predominantly coming from the west, hence the U-shaped form of the rock walls surrounding our site. But now it coming from the opposite side and the rocks don't offer much protection anymore and I have to crawl out of my warm sleeping bag during the evening to fix some extra rope between the tent and some large boulders. The storm shakes the tent all night long, but it stays in place and doesn't damage during the restless night.

Priut 11- Azau, Wednesday 7th July

After the stormy night the skies are clear again, but the wind has only dropped in temperature and hardly in strength. We have to wear full gear and take much care while packing one tent at a time so nothing blows away. With our full packs we quickly step down the Gabarashi glacier toward the Barrels. The chairlift is not moving and no attendant is visible. We don't feel like waiting and continue down the ski slopes to Mir.

There we take the cable car down; inside we get much attention form the local friendly day tourists. At first they give these weird foreigners with their whitened noses and full gore-tex gear some suspicious looks, but soon they understand where we were coming from and we get lots of friendly thumbs up. A quick change in the lower station and a few minutes later we arrive in Azau where we check in the little hotel. It's lunchtime: more pancakes, schaslicks, Fanta & cola, hurray!

After a nice shower we use the afternoon to make a really nice hike trough the beautiful green forests along the river and end up in Terskol. We just enter the little round café for a drink when Oleg enters:

"Hi Oleg, how are you doing?"

"Good, but as I am returning home, I wanted to say goodbye to you."

"? But how did you know we would be here, in this bar in this village?"

"Oh, I already searched in Azau and thought you might be here."

No use arguing there as we were here indeed.

When Oleg leaves we are approached by an American who sits behind us and overheard our conversation; he heard us mentioning a mountain and wondered if we climbed Elbrus, as he had the same plan for this week. His Russian girlfriend clearly was less interested and looked quite sad after our stories…

When we step outside into the warm air we notice the son of Anatoli, the owner of the Azau hotel. He just parked in front of the post office and offers us a ride back to Azau in his old Lada with a ski pole instead of a gear shift…

We get another tasty meal in the small hotel and just when we want to call it a night Nikolai and Natascha invite us for a drink. They brought two friends of which one, another Oleg, isn't just a Nuclear Physicist, but also a 9-fold Russian climbing champion and 40fold all-round mountaineering champion. When I ask on which mountain he has lost his finger he tells me he already lost when he was a kid, by playing with an old grenade. So he has become a climbing champion with 9 fingers…wow.

Natascha refills the glasses and raises hers; then she starts a long sentence in Russian that is greeted with approving nods from the other guys. Then we empty the glasses in one sip. When they are being refilled (immediately) I ask Natascha what the toast meant:

" Hey Natascha, what did we toast to?"

"It's an old local toast that translated will be something like: may you have as much happiness as there is snow on the summit of Mt Elbrus and may you have as less trouble as there are drops left in your glass!"

Of course the repeating of this sentence means that we have to empty the glasses again…

Saskia and I get another bonus toast from the other friend who doesn't speak any English, Natascha translates:

"He says he wants to toast again for you as you are from the Netherlands and for you it is a lot harder to get from sea-level to the Elbrus summit!"

It makes us blush, and quickly we empty our glasses.

When the second bottle is finished as well we are invited to their hotel room where we are served some tea and a lot of great stories about mountains and the Russian climbing team. As in the communist area it was forbidden to travel abroad unless you were a top athlete, many women wanted to get into the national climbing team. So they though up a few exams, one of which was the Elbrus run: everybody assembled at the Priut 11 and when given the signal, they had to run to the summit. As Natascha finished second in two and a half hours (!) she made the team.

After many beautiful stories about Russia, Nepal and Kamchatka we head off to our room across the hall and sleep like logs.

Baksan Valley, Thursday 8th July

After a great sleep we wake up fresh and after breakfast we hike through the woods to the Cheget sporthotel where we going to meet Nikolai at the local wool market. Besides wool it's also a little bit a fruit market as a little really old lady sells cherries and watermelons.

We buy a few woolen sweaters and socks, but trying them on for size while it is 30 degrees outside has made us thirsty and we buy 2 kilos of cherries and a large melon. We eat it immediately together with Nikolai and Oleg and enjoy life: a warm sun, a sweet watermelon and high snowy peaks all around… hmm!!!

We continue our hike towards another mineral spring where the healthy (?) water emerges carbonated and leaves a red trail of iron on the riverbanks. But the promised restaurant is totally abandoned, the only activity around here is a family that is refilling old plastic bottles with the mineral water. They almost have the trunk of their car completely filled and will sell it on one of the markets down the road.

We walk back along the hole-filled road while the sun mercilessly burns our shoulders. Along the way we see many half-built hotels and other large buildings that were started during the communist plan-economy, but now there is no money to finish them. This entire area is perfect for tourism, but both the investors and the tourists are scared away by de nearby Chechnya war and stories about local mafia, so I guess that the valley will keep this sad ghost-town look for quite a while.

We find a little restaurant next to the road; they are out of schaslicks, but we are surprised by some fried meaty things and a big salad!

In front of the restaurant two elderly ladies sit selling drinks; they have about 15 bottles sorted on size. Further investigation reveals that there is nothing without alcohol and we slowly continue to Terskol, where we again get a ride from Anatoli's son back to Azau.

During dinner that same son comes in and enters a videotape into the large player and turns up the volume. It is an illegal copy of Schwarzeneggers Eraser, clearly filmed inside a theatre and all the voices are translated on the spot and spoken by a low-voiced Russian, doing both the male as well as the female voices. We think that we better spend our time on something else like a warm shower and a needed shave and finish our dinner quickly. Just when we crawl under our sheets Nikolai knock on the door and invites us for a special bottle of wine and more stories and of course this cannot be resisted…

Baksan Valley - Moscow, Friday 9th of July

We sadly say goodbye to all of our new friends and get in the old van that will take us to the airport. During the trip to Mineralnye Vody we are stopped and checked many times; at the unofficial border post of Kabardino-Balkaria (disguised as a 'weighing station', only there are no scales…) we are stopped again but the magical word 'tourists' gets us on the road again. But I am glad that I dropped my original plan: driving all the way from Amsterdam by car; the lack of good fuel, roads, spare parts and mechanics probably would have resulted in either getting stuck somewhere halfway or getting robbed without ever seeing these magnificent mountains.

The two-lane road to Mineralnye is being used as a three-lane one and even sometimes as a 4 lane, but we arrive at the airport in one piece where large posters of Cindy Crawford and loud music from Tarkan illustrate some of the many cultural influences in this region. Nikolai has to save us at the luggage check as our axes, crampons, stove and iron plates in our boot soles freak out the guards, but when they are being told that we are mountaineers they relax again. It's still over 30 degrees and we are forced to wait in a hot steel building before we can board our plane where again all of our tickets are being checked.

When after the lunch (a tasty salami sandwich) the stewardess with the drinks approaches I learned my lesson; when she asks me want I want to drink I answer friendly:

"A cola please!"

She looks at me angrily and asks cross:

"Fanta or mineral water?"

I take a Fanta and smile.