Start altitude: Terskol, 2,350 metres; High point: Malyj Cheget, 3,456 metres.
Our breakfast in Terskol this morning was somewhat more civilised than our breakfast in Moscow yesterday. In Moscow, we’d been told our bus was leaving on the dot at 7.45am to get us to the airport in time. However the hotel refused to serve breakfast any earlier than 7.30. Tge advice was to congregate in the lobby just before 7.30 and to eat quick and dirty once the doors opened. Unfortunately 50 or 60 French tourists on an active retirement tour were given the same instructions. We all gathered at 7.20 and eyed each other warily. It looked like the Cornucopia scene from the Hunger Games, but played by the cast of ‘Allo ‘Allo. You could have cut the tension with a butter knife, but nobody had a butter knife yet, as the restaurant doors hadn’t opened.
Just to add a deadly twist, the doors opened two minutes early and the carnage began. Everyone rushed the restaurant doors and grappled for control of the buffet table. The orange juice flowed, the coffee bubbled and cries of “Ou es les Oeuf?” and “Fromage, Edith, FROMAGE!” filled the air. I was not ashamed to use my elbows.
I came away with two pancakes, an oddly angular fried egg, and a helping of some sort of omelette pie on which someone had left a soggy teabag. I was initially disappointed that I had missed the porridge, but upon hearing that the porridge was made from mayonnaise, millet and glue, I thanked my lucky stars and ate like a man who has earned his reward.
We eventually made it to the airport with thirteen trekkers, thirteen bags, thirteen tickets and twelve passports.
The breakfast today in Terskol was different to Moscow. A waitress brought us bland bread, bland cheese, and oversweet porridge (millet again, probably). Unfortunately the waiting staff here are rationed to one smile a day, but we were given a packed lunch as compensation so all in all, it worked out well.
We had our first acclimatisation walk today. Our hotel is about 2,340 metres above sea level. We climbed to Malyj Cheget, which is the peak right behind our hotel, a mere kilometre above us at 3,456m.
We were led by Olek, a mountain guide who spends his summers in the Caucasus bringing people like me up Elbrus, his winters in the alps teaching the French how to ski, and any time in the middle in Moscow, disliking the Muscovites.
Olek led us down the Asau river, explaining the abundance of kamikaze cows on the roads, the building of little avalanche pyramids where glacier rivers reach the valley floor, and making a poibt of learning the names of all the girls in the group. We took a chairlift from Cheget town to 2,700m. At the base, some local women were trying to sell us heavy and thickly knitted woolen gear to wear in the 28° heat. I bought nothing which may explain what happened next: as soon as I sat in the chairlift, my brand new dustproof, waterproof, freezeproof and shockproof camera stopped working. Either the toughest camera in the world is as afraid of chairlifts as I am, or one of tge local ladies put a curse on me for not buying her pink flowery balaclava.
Without a camera, I still somehow managed to go on. At 2,700 we bypassed the next chairlift and started climbing towards the summit. We moved at a steady pace (at least most of us did), but I could certainly feel the effects of the thinner air when climbing tge steep path. As we went up and up, I was a little slower to catch my breath, had a mild headache, and moved a little slower.
We were treated to amazing views of the surrounding peaks, many of them with impressive snow caps or glaciers. At about 2,850 we began to see small patches of snow on our own peak, but it stayed warm right up to about 3,200.
At one point, we walked beside a group of loud teenagers, all wearing red Russia tracksuits and panting and sweating their way up the path. They were a junior karate team who were in the region for a few weeks to train at high altitude. Their coach had told them to hike up to the viewpoint to test their cardio fitnes. The coach himself was taking the skilift.
As we walked we discussed the dangers of rhododendrons and the melting of the glaciers. In recent years, as the glaciers shrink, bodies and weapons from World War 2 are being discovered in the ice. We were warned against bringing any live weapons on the plane home with us, just in case someone complained, you know.
We saw a golden eagle hovering above the valley, a mountain lake turned bright green by some sort of vegetation, and crossed a small snow field. We were almost knocked off the path by a flock of two hundred black,white and brown sheep, a smaller flock of Danish trekkers, and an American man whose daughter is getting married in Dublin in September. We invited ourselves to the wedding; I hope they provide a good veggie meal.
The summit of Malyj Cheget has a very small pile of stones to mark the top. One of our trekkers immediately knocked off the top stone. But they replaced it with a slightly larger stone, so in a way by climbing this mountain we have made it a little bit bigger.
It began to rain and hail while we were at the top eating our packed lunches from the smileless waitress. We moved down as quickly as we could but could hear very heavy thunder booming regularly from across the valley. Olek says the thunderstorms never cross the Georgian border, but who could blame them.
A thick mist had settled before we reached the ski lifts again. For a while we couldn’t see the mountains, the ground, or anything other than the lift on front of us. It was pretty scary; I might have wet my pants were they not already soaked by the rain and mist.
We had a beer at the bottom of the mountain to celebrate our walk. The beer was called 5642, after the altitude of Elbrus. We swapped stories about climbing, driving and life in general. My roommate is a retired colonel who told us about seeing road accidents turn into murders whole he was working as a UN observer in Syria. His stories always make mine seem ridiculously childish. Even his jacket is older and more experienced than me. It’s in better condition too.
Our dinner tonight was salad, soup, mashed potato, and oranges which clearly infected with the plague. I’d rather not talk about it.
BaldFeet 