На Эльбрусе было Отлично!

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In other words, Elbrus was excellent!

Summited the 5642 meter mountain Monday morning at 10:15 am local time after a quite arduous 1800 meter (6000 feet) ascent from the not so high camp at 3800 meters.

Brief synopsis:

Day 1, July 13 - Harrowing 3 hour drive from Kislovodsk to north route base camp at 2200 meters.
Day 2 - Carry a load to "high camp," sleep at base camp.
Day 3 - Move to high camp and sleep there. Awful camp.
Day 4 - Acclimatization hike to Lenz Rocks at 4700 meters.
Day 5/6 - Rest day then wake up a little after 01:00 Monday morning to clear skies and a nearly full moon, get dressed and wolf down some oatmeal chased with tea. Bolted from camp around 02:15 and barely stopped on the 8 hour ascent. Spent about 10 minutes on the summit as the weather rapidly deteriorated. Reached high camp at 12:30 and spent the night.
Day 7 - Packed up, headed back down to base camp and spent most of the day in the tent as it rained in the afternoon as usual.
Day 8 - Met our ride and drove back to Kislovodsk at 10:00. Changed my train ticket and arrived in Adler on the Black Sea coast this morning. Shared the compartment with 3 Russian soldiers on leave. There was much drinking by all and bad Russian spoken by me but it seemed to get better after the first liter of vodka was gone. Interesting. Still mildly hungover. The oppressive heat here is not helping.

Only a few photos to post at the moment.

As far as the rest of the trip:

Iceland - hard to make an impression as it rained 8 out of 16 days. Also unseasonably cold and windy. If you're not in Rejkyavik, it's raining, and you're camping, you're stuffed for anything to do. Still managed to tag the highest peak Hvannadalshnúkur on one of the few dry days. It's only 2110 meters but still took almost 12 hours car to car as it is 25 km round trip.

Saint Petersburg and Moscow were both awesome. Wish I had spent far more time in both places.

пока комрады!

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