13/7/2010
We started on Elbrus today. Well, that’s if taking the ski lift is considered a start. We’ve managed with a bit of difficulty to get our 200kg bags up to the first base camp where the barrels are (barrels being round tin containers that you can sleep in for a price).
We walked our gear another 300m further up to get away from the circus.That was quite hard work, cause on the ski lift we gained 2000m in altitude so walking another 300m certainly wasn’t easy. Pierre’s resting heart rate was 92 instead of his usual 53 back in Joburg. We pitched some tents and had lunch in horrible weather – wet snow (sleet) and what’s worse is that it seems to be the forecast for the next week. So we’re in for a wet and cold time. Certainly an unpredictable flight too.
We then walked 2000m back to our hotel, completely wet. Tomorrow is our first real hard walk day. We’ll walk the 2000m back up to our camp to spend our first night on the mountain. We’ll have lite bags but a hellava lot of climbing to do.Then, if all goes well, we’ll move our camp higher the next day, and go back to base camp to spend the night.
The following night we’ll spend the night at high camp. And if we’re lucky we can go for the summit the day after. Earliest we’ll summit and fly is on Monday. But like I say, we don’t have great weather so may have to wait it out a bit.
We’ll keep u updated. Check out our latest pix and video gallery!
Marianne
