Elbrus Day 5 – Friday July 13, 2012

July 13, 2012 joeashkar

Happy Friday the 13th!!! The Mountain Czars rocked the mountain today!

It was a beautiful perfect weather day. After an early breakfast, we set off on another acclimatization hike. We climbed up to 10,000 ft albeit on a very uphill, steep and rocky path to Cheget Observatory. Along way we were treated to amazing panoramic views of the Caucasus mountain range, waterfalls from melting glaciers and a large variety of wildflowers.

Upon reaching the summit of our hike, our legendary guide Vern Tejas treated us to an amazing performance of playing the harmonica sounding several familiar tunes. The performance went on continuously for about 15 minutes at high altitude.

The precipitous descent was bloodcurling and not for the faint of heart. Not only was it dangerously steep but it also was riddled with plenty of loose rock rolling down the hill followed by extremely slippery grass.

We later celebrated the day with a nice diner, our last one at the lodge before we head up the mountain up to our high-camp readying for the Summit push over the next 3 or 4 days.

So stay tuned for the continuing adventures of the Mountain Czars, ta ta for now.

P.S. It’s possible that we won’t be able to update the blog over the next couple of days due to a lack of connectivity higher up the mountain.