​Start Point: Camp 1, 3,730m

High Point: Random Rock on the mountain, 3,900m

End Point: Camp 1, 3,730m

Today was a rest and skills day. Resting helps acclimatisation so half the day was set aside for sitting around doing nothing. The other half of the day, the morning, was an opportunity to get out on the snow field near Camp 1 and practice putting on and wearing harnesses and crampons, and walking with ice axes, which a lot of the team haven’t done before and I have really only done on rest and skills days on other expeditions.

Ivan had hightailed it back down to basecamp to collect our (now recovered) 11th trekker, so Vladimir and our leader took a team each. I went with our Irish leader – he led us in zigzags up the mountain, breaking trail in the fresh snow and switching position from front to back in the group to get used to both walking on a well(ish) worn path (fairly easy) and in deep soft snow (not easy at all).

After a while we reached a small group of rocks poking up out of the snow and stopped for a rest. Vladimir and his team joined us shortly after and (using 10% Russian, 10% broken English and 80% hand gestures) quite coherently gave out to some people for sitting facing downhill as they wouldn’t be able to spot avalanches. He didn’t complain at all at our game of throwing snowballs at each others ice axes trying to knock them over, nor at the game of throwing snowballs as far as possible downhill and seeing how far they rolled, which Warner Bros and Disney have led me to believe is the main cause of avalanches. 

The teams switched when we left the rocks and Vlad complained about us not walking straight enough, not cleaning our boots enough, cleaning our boots when they didn’t need to be cleaned, looking down to check if our boots needed cleaning, not looking back to check the team enough and not looking straight ahead. All again through mime and mutters. He’d be a very good mime.

One unexpected aspect of the day is that it was absolutely roasting. The sun was very hot and we all stripped down to barely one or two layers. However whenever a bit of cloud covered the sun or a breeze blew we were reminded we were nearly 4,000m up a snow-covered mountain. That said, I think everyone got a bit of colour despite the Factor 50, the sunglasses, the hat and the buff.

Wearing my crampons, I managed to put a hole in my waterproof trousers again. From the inside they are now 50% duct tape, holding the tears together. As the first piece of duct tape is still there since the last time I was on Elbrus two years ago and the trousers have kept my arse dry in various continents, I’m happy to recommend duct tape as a solution to most of life’s problems (as if it needed any further endorsement.)

Back in the mess hall for lunch, Vlad looked out for me by asking very kindly “You are vegetable?” when I was handed meat free soup. Yes, I am vegetable. We also have someone who doesn’t eat vegetables (and will eat around them quite impressively), someone who doesn’t eat soup (which is served with every meal), and a few people who mostly eat the leftovers from everyone else’s meals, so I’m not the only freak when it comes to mealtimes.

The two ladies in the messhall (Olga and Katya) take very good care of us, although Ivan wasn’t impressed with Katya introducing herself to us as ‘Kate’. He doesn’t like Russian girls named Katya calling themselves Kate. He said it was ‘fashionable’ in the same tone of voice he might have used to describe a bad case of dysentery.

As much as Kate takes care of us, she’s kicked us out of the messhall a few times very quickly after we finish eating. She says it’s because she has other groups coming in, but I think it’s because we’re a really loud and annoying bunch of people. I suspect she doesn’t understand ‘having the craic’. We were also shushed by someone else when playing cards outside. Having too much fun I guess.

In slightly worrying news, so far three of the gang have come down with some sort of stomach upset, the latest just tonight. Thankfully the first two were fully recovered after 24 hours, so hopefully it is the same with the third. A stomach upset is bad enough when the only loo is a hole on the ground in a tin box hanging off the side of a cliff a hundred yards away across a rocky icy path in sub-zero temperatures. The sickness has put everyone a bit on edge when it comes to hygiene and water cleanliness. There isn’t a lot of water available anyway, as it has to be fetched by hand from a glacial lake nearby and then it has to be boiled or treated with iodine tablets. Basically it’s a tad annoying but sure that’s the kind of craic we signed up for. 

Tomorrow we’re up at 6 to head for Lenz rocks on an acclimatisation day. Whoop.