Start Point: Base Camp – Emmanuel Meadows, 2,575m

End Point: Camp 1, 3,730m 

Our group of 14 (11 trekkers, an expedition leader, a doctor and a guide) became 13 today hopefully temporarily. One of the team came down with a stomach bug and was unable to join our heavy wet trek back up to Camp 1, this time with the rest of our stuff. Hopefully they’ll be back up with us tomorrow.

On the other hand, we were joined by Vladimir who’ll be an assistant guide for the next few days. Vladimir is not young, speaks no English and communicates with us entirely in hand gestures. Seems like a decent chap.

I think my grumpiness in yesterday’s post was a bad case of attitude sickness brought on by an inability to get anything dry. I cheered up a little with a good night’s sleep and when the rain stopped and the sun shone for about 7 minutes just before breakfast.

We were in no huge hurry to get started today, as our only task was to get to Camp 1 which is about a 5 hour trek. So we spent the morning thinking and rethinking about what we should actually bring with us. Despite having opportunities in Dublin and Pyatigorsk to leave the unessentials behind, both I and everyone else had a good amount to leave at basecamp after changing out minds several times. We mostly ignored the fact that nearly everything we bring up has to be brought back down again after the summit attempt. 

Once we had rushed to get the unfortunately heavy bags packed and ready to go, we promptly put them back in the tents and sat in the mess hall for two and a half hours hoping the weather would improve. It did. The rain stopped and we started hiking abou 11.35; I think the original plan was 9.

We filled in the waiting time with a series of card games, card tricks and various puzzles. It was a lot of fun. Our expedition leader showed a card trick that looked very impressive and had us all stumped for a while. A clue to how he did it is included in this post. Further details are available to anyone who buys me (or, I’m guessing, him) a pint. Our guide then stumped us with a brain teaser that none of us could figure out and which kept me quiet for the first three hours of hiking – until the altitude hit me maybe, and I joined in a bit of the trekking banter, somewhat subdued by the weight of the bags and the cold wind.

Today was a tough day: wet muddy trails, heavy bags, quite cold and a lot of snow/rain showers blowing into our faces. The extra weight made us walk a lot slower which didn’t help the coldness, but I (at least) was lucky enough to get the layering more or less right so stayed mostly comfortable throughout the day.

Along the trek we could that the snowline had moved about 300m lower down overnight. So the expedition leader and guide tried to warm us up by telling jokes that are too rude to repeat here (my Mum reads this). There was a heated conversation about cyclists versus drivers and cyclists’ reasons for cycling four abreast along narrow roads with a build-up of cars behind them. Towards the top, one of the Wexford lads who was struggling a bit was heard to mutter to himself grumpily ‘Climb Elbrus they said. Be grand they said.’ He’s been keeping a journal and opened it up tonight to see that his last entry from two days ago was ‘all is well.’ He expects to use only curse words to complete it from here on in. As we reached Camp 1 the dog we met yesterday greeted us all happily and we all petted him. When the Wexford lad hit camp, the same dog sat down in the middle of his path, blocking his way. ‘Get the hell out of my way, dog’ might feature in tonight’s journal entry.

One of the most memorable parts of today’s challenge was the two lads I’ve nicknamed Dirty Dub and Smelly Dub serenading us with Bagatelle’s Summer in Dublin and various Bruce Springsteen hits from behind. It’s unclear if they expected the singing to raise our spirits and spur us on; or if they thought the quality of their singing would make us climb faster to get away from them. 

My spirits were raised and I sang along with them, but part of my happiness was due to my hitherto success in the burgeoning back market prune business amongst the team. I collected prunes from various packed lunches when nobody wanted them, but have since started getting people addicted to them. And a bit of dietary regularity is very important on a trek like this.

Our accommodation at Camp 1 is a lot better than I expected but a bit different. Our team is sharing a large circular building with a few other randoms. There’s just one door, a central area with a stove and plugs and then 6 little alcoves with sleeping space for 3 or 4. As I type this, the noise of the large diesel generator which provides electricity for the entire camp is being drowned out by some loud snoring in a Wexford accent.