right, the hero...
this year at Elbrus was much more interesting because of the different weathers. for an example we got a really cool snow storm at 4200. the tent was almost about to fly away and we were inside a thunder cloud. the lightning was too light to watch even with closed eyes. and the thunder...
. electricity was even in the tent, someone said his hair on the arm got up, when he pulled his arm out of the sleeping bag..
I wanted to save strenght for the other trip so i didn't push myself too much. i only ascended to about 4700 m.
Climbing Lenin was quite hard, the distances were long. and with a big rucksack all the time of course. from base camp (3600 m) to the first camp (4200 m) about 10 hours walk. then back down to rest. then again to the first camp. then to the second camp (5300) also about 10 hours and then after two nights there we should have gone to the third camp (6100 m), but the weather was bad and most of us came down. that was a mistake because we didn't get the acclimation we needed to go to the top. i didn't really care about that because i wanted to go down and not to come up again, i didn't feel so good. and i didn't want to make that discusting endless abrupt ascent to the second camp again
. i had had enough. so i stayed at the base while most of the others went again to the final ascent. two people made it to the top, one man and one woman. even though she didn't have the needed acclimation and some said it is impossible to go like that.
Lenin is a really big mountain and every step of the way it was obvious how easy it is to make a mistake and get killed. at times the road went along a steep mountain side and one wrong move would make you slide to the abyss. or then there were big ice cracks we had to cross. i think someone fell in and died during our stay there. all the time we heard some ice cracking and rocks falling from somewhere. or the tracks of avalanches. or then crossing a ferocious mountain river. few years ago someone had slipped there and gone with the flow under the glacier.
also we had time to make a walk in Moscow, that was also interesting.
well, that's a short overview
it was a really interesting trip.