It has taken me too long to get to this. Partially it was because there were a lot of mixed emotions amongst the team for a few days and I didn’t want to be insensitive to anyone; partially it was because even after the summit attempt, we’ve been busy and active non-stop; partially it was I hadn’t fully figured out how I felt about the results of the climb; but mostly it was because I was just exhausted and a bit lazy.
The day before summit day, I got a few hours sleep in the afternoon and woke to hear that our summit attempt had been pushed back from 3am to 5am. We were expecting bad winds, and the later start meant we’d reach the most exposed parts of the mountain, the saddle (between the East and West peaks) and our goal, the higher Western summit, after the sun came up when it would hopefully be warmer.
We also met our third guide for the summit attempt. His job was to lead down any trekkers who had to pull out early for any reason. He appeared to be a transition year student on work experience and immediately upon arrival, one of the ladies in the team had set him to collecting stones and timber to build a path to her hut, the mountain equivalent of doing the photocopying.
Although our itinerary included a spare summit day, most amateur climbers, including me and most of our team, wouldn’t have the condition to make two summit attempts on consecutive days, so it was important we picked the best of the days on which to take our one shot. We (our guides) checked three separate weather forecasts and all said the same thing: high winds on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As the weather wasn’t going to change, we decided to stick with our original plan and make our attempt on Friday. It was the right decision at the time and for the right reasons.
At dinner before the climb, our local guide threw a minor spanner in the works. He offered a snowcat ride to 5,100m, rather than to 4,700m as we’d planned. A snowcat is like a tractor for the ice. Cutting out the 400m climb would save us 2 hours and cost us €400. Some baulked at the additional cost and most felt uncomfortable hitching a ride up the mountain, rather than walking up. I already felt weird taking the snowcat to the Pashtakova Rocks at 4,700m, but most of us reasoned that as we’d already hiked to 4,700m on foot, we had already covering the section under our own steam, just on separate days.
The new offer meant skipping an entire section. It was an all-or-none decision for the 11 Earth’s Edge participants; the guides couldn’t and wouldn’t decide for us. I was anxious about potential disagreementa but luckily everyone felt the same way and as a team, we unanimously rejected the offer. It was the right decision at the time and for the right reasons.
The Australian who was sharing our huts and who liked my hat, he took the offer; he’d already walked to 5,100m the first time he’d attempted the mountain. That first time, altitude sickness had turned him around on the saddle. Given his history on Elbrus, I guess he was happy for anything that reduced the chances of another turnaround; it’s a long way from Melbourne to Moscow.
We tried to sleep, but it wasn’t easy. We got up at 3.30am and I started faffing. I was wearing four layers in most places and made a big deal of grtting them all on right. Some bits can’t go on before others, for example, you should never try and put on trousers while you have shap spikes strapped to your feet. Other bits work best when they overlap, or at least that’s what I assumed until my first attempt at going to the loo on summit night: even after finding my fly under my down jacket, harness and windproof layer, I had to dig through the fleece, trekking pants, base layer, long johns and undies before any relief could be had. I feel more sorry for the girls in the group who had a much tougher time on the rare occasion we could afford a pee break.
We started trekking from 4,700m at about 5.45am. The sun should have been up but we couldn’t see it. We were surrounded by cloud all day.
My first problem was that I’d tied one of my boots too loose and needed to adjust them. Like a right plonker, the first thing I did was lift my snow visor off my face allowing it to fill with freezing air which frosted up the front, leaving me half blind. When our Irish guide risked his fingers to clear it for me, I realised two things: one, the cloud was so thick that nobody could see much anyway; and two, my goggles were rubbish anyway and designed for someone with a much smaller head than mine.
My second problem was that my drinking water froze. The same thing happened to me on Kilimanjaro and I thought I’d learned. On Elbrus, my waterbag was insulated in my bag; my drinking tube was covered in a thick foam layer; but it all made no difference. Other people’s water wasn’t insulated at all and didn’t freeze. I had the biggest pipe in the team (ooh err) but after two hours I couldn’t get a drop no matter how hard I sucked (ooh err). Luckily did have spare water in my bag, but carrying a 2 litre ice cube up a mountain is a little annoying all the same.
As we got higher up the mountain, the wind got stronger and the cloud got thicker. Occasionally there’d be a break, and we’d see the sun for a few seconds, or catch a glimpse of the valley below and we’d think we had finally climbed out of the cloud, but tge bright patches never lasted.
It started to rain and hail too. Despite our measured, slow pace, I was already panting with each step due to the altitude, but now I had to use the balaclava to keep the hailstones off my face. It’s very difficult to breathe through a balaclava. It seemed like my choice was: breathe fast through a wet towel or get shot in the face with marbles; it’s not an easy choice. The upside is that I now understand why Darth Vadar sounded like he did.
Luckily my fingers and toes were mostly toasty. My heavy boots did their job. So did the mitts, except I had to strip down to liner gloves to get anything from my bag or go to the loo, after which my fingers felt like icicles for five minutes afterwards. Our Irish guide had his gloves off regularly to help others with silly bits and pieces. I’m pretty sure if I had my hands bare as often as he did, this blog would be typed using my elbows.
Despite the wind, hail, cold and cloud, we were all moving fairly well when we got to the saddle. When we did, we got a taste of what hell freezing over would be like. Saddles between two peaks, like the one we were on, cause the wind (and with it the hail) to speed up going through it. It’s basically a wind tunnel full of shards of ice. We met other teams there and learned that quite a few of them had turned back at that point, while others only made it down with frostbite. Our transition year guide accepted this news while crouched in the foetal position. It was too noisy to tell if he was whimpering.
Our local guide offered to turn us back. We later found out these were the worst conditions he’d seen in years. However as we were all still strong, we decided to push on, hoping that once above the saddle the weather would improve. It didn’t; it got a whole lot worse.
I think everyone of us (including one of the guides) was knocked over at least once on the climb towards the summit. The wind came in sudden strong gusts and changed direction at random, so if you were mid step when it caught you, you went down. There is a fixed line to prevent serious falls at the steepest part of the final ascent, but we didn’t even make it that far. Although it felt difficult enough to deserve it.
At one point our lead guide was knocked to the snow and waited for the gusts to calm down before standing up, but they didn’t calm down. We all just crouched and waited behind him wondering what was happening. After about five minutes, he turned to us, ran his fingers across his throat and started pointing down the slope. He couldn’t go any further and he certainly couldn’t bring us any further. My altimeter said 5,430. The summit is at 5,642.
It took a while for the message to get to everybody. With the wind, we couldn’t hear anyone more than three feet away. There were a lot of shocked disappointed faces, but there was also some relief.
Had we kept going, we had at least an hour and a half more to climb. Probably more, given the conditions. There is a ridge between the top of the climb and the summit proper, where the winds were likely stronger again than where we’d been knocked from our feet. We also had to get back down. Turning around was the only safe option. It was the right decision at the time and for the right reasons.
Our guide has told us that the first time Reinhold Messner tried to climb Elbrus, he had to turn back. The first time Tensing Norgay tried it, he had to turn back. The first time I tried to climb Carrauntoohill, I had to turn back. Sometimes it’s the only thing that makes any sense, even if you’ve done everything right up to the then.
Although I am very disappointed at not reaching the summit of Elbrus, I am as happy as I can be about the circumstances in which it happened. It wasn’t my loose boots, my frozen water, cold fingers or cheap goggles that caused it. It wasn’t anyone’s nosebleed, blistered feet, weak knees or improvised head torch. Everything that was in our control, we did right. All our key decisions were right.
It wasn’t even altitude sickness, which isn’t in our control, that turned us around. Individually, and as a team, we were as fit, equipped and prepared as we needed to be to get to the top; only the weather was against us.
The weather was against us all the way down the mountain as well. The hail and wind kept up and added to the growing tiredness and effects of altitude sickness (headaches and tiredness), it wasn’t a pleasant descent. Once we got below the cloud, the hail turned to rain and we could see lightning on some of the surrounding peaks. On the highest mountain on the continent, carrying an ice axe and wearing crampons is not really where you want to be in a thunderstorm.
We all found our way home at our own pace. I was pretty slow as my legs felt like concrete blocks. When I opened the door of the hut, it was already bubbling with the aroma of six other sweaty waterlogged disappointed men who hadn’t washed in four days. Plus their socks. It was oddly pleasant and welcoming.
Since that first attempt at Carrauntohill, I’ve been up four or five times since. I’m not sure if or when I’ll ever be back on Elbrus. We may not have made it to the summit, but at 5,430, we still got higher than any other mountain in Europe and we did everything we could have done to make it happen.
The waterproof, dustproof, shockproof, freezeproof camera never left my pocket.
BaldFeet 
