Caucasus. 5642m, Elbrus Summit – 2009.08.11

We climbed fast for the next hour up to the dark rocks near the ridge. There, we thought there were about 5100m. We didn’t have an altimeter, so we asked another guy that was resting there. He answered “Oh, we are at 5535 here”. Wow, much much higher than we expected. “You mean, in 40 minutes we”ll be on top?” “Yes, 40-50 minutes”. That was great news, as we thought we would climb at least 4 more hours. Very interesting, that meant only 5 hours for the summit. Some more pictures, and we were ready to go. Lucian feet were warmer now, but the 3 fingers were still frozen.

Just after deciding to go down, Tibi appeared on the horizon. Ileana felt worse, so she decided to go down, not to puke after so much time on the summit. Me and Lucian didn’t feel very well either, but we stayed there with Tibi. In total, 2 hours 30 minutes on the summit. For both of us, this is a new summit personal record. I don’t remember any other place where I had climbed and stayed so long on the summit.

Out tents were at the first line of rocks. We hoped to get there, pack everything and run downhill to catch the cable car to Azau. We were on a hurry, as we all wanted to go to Bezengi, and Tibi had to go to Ararat on the 23rd. Time was short, tiredness was manageable. At lest for some of us…