The Ascent of Mount Elbrus - The Highest Peak in Europe

July 16, 2002 found 54 Candles member Howard Jones on the summit of Russia's Mount Elbrus.  At 18,481 feet, it is the highest mountain on the European continent.  Ten days earlier, he left Arizona for Moscow and then traveled on Siberian Airlines to Mineral Vody, Russia.  From there, a small bus took him to Terskol in the Baksan Valley where the ascent began.  A few pictures from the climb follow.

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July 7, 2002.  We had some time to visit the sites of Moscow while the members of the climbing team arrived from their various parts of the world.  Here's a view of a part of the Kremlin.  The word "Kremlin" means "fortress" in Russian.  Inside the Kremlin walls are some of Moscow's most spectacular sights.  In addition to some government buildings, there are churches, schools, military facilities and museums that are nothing short of incredible.

Located just outside the Kremlin walls is breath-takingly beautiful St. Basil's.  It lies at one end of Red Square.  Red Square's name has nothing to do with communism.  It meant "Beautiful" Square in Russian.  It remains one of Russia's most beautiful sites to this day.

After a long day of travel, we arrived in Terskol.  Situated at the end of the Baksan Valley, this small community boasts a ski resort at the base of Mount Elbrus.  It sits at slightly above 7,000 feet elevation and is the access point for climbers heading up the mountain.  Note that the twin summits of Mount Elbrus are visible in the photograph as is the village of Terskol 11,000 feet below in the valley..

The mountains surrounding Terskol are indescribably beautiful.  Countless streams flow down the mountains as the glaciers melt high above.  They come together to feed the Baksan River which can and does periodically flood causing massive destruction in its path.

On an acclimatization hike from Terskol, I not only took the time to smell the flowers, I photographed them as well.  At an elevation of approximately 9,000 feet, the snows had melted enough to allow the meadows to come alive with seemingly endless fields of yellow and blue flowers.  As if the mountains weren't already magnificent enough.

It is said that Hitler had a fortune-teller say to him that if he captured and held the highest point in Russia, he would win World War II.  He sent his troops in and took the summit of Mount Elbrus and held it for a time.  There was some fierce fighting on Elbrus during the war.  At around the 15,000 foot level when the snow melts at the end of the summer season, spent Nazi shell casings can still be found lying on the mountain side.

We were asked to give our group of fourteen climbers an expedition name.  After struggling to find a name acceptable to all, we finally settled on the "Ten Flags" expedition.  This was as a result of the fact that our fourteen climbers came from a total of ten different countries.  In this picture, you see climbers from the U.S.A. (Howard), Italy (Daniele), United Arab Emirates (Khalid), Turkey (Kemal), Iran (Mani) and Australia (Darius).  We also had climbers from Great Britain (Alison), Singapore (Priscilla), Russia (Tom, et.al.), and China (Steve).

Whenever a high altitude summit is the goal, proper acclimatization is critical to climbing success.  "Climb high - sleep low" is the mantra of alpinists everywhere.  This involves slowly climbing and spending significant amounts of time at ever increasing elevations before launching a final assault on the summit.  Here, Howard Jones takes a little break on a meadow ledge two thousand feet above the valley floor.

As we approached the snow line, the view kept getting better.  Here you see a portion of the range guarding the other side of the Baksan Valley.  It separates Terskol from Georgia and the war in Chechnya.  The range also presents some extremely formidable challenges to mountain climbers.  Some of the peaks are not only very high, but extremely difficult to reach.

Flowers and meadows can't last forever if we're heading for the summit.  Once we leave our relatively comfortable base in Terskol and move up the mountain, the views begin taking on a very different character.  Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse as we climbed higher and the snows became the rule.  Here we had a brief window between cloud layers.

With each passing day, the snowy mountains above changed into the snowy mountains below.  With a brief break in the weather, we got this glimpse of the range on the other side of Terskol.  It doesn't seem to matter how many high altitude climbs one has undertaken, climbers never tire of the beauty nature presents as they ascend the mountains.

Some highly experienced climbers willing to take big risks climb the massive mountain face in this picture by climbing the glacier the seems to form the digit "7".  The big problem is that during the entire time the climber is on the bottom half of the glacier, the upper portion is positioned such that massive ice-falls, seracs as big as houses, can break and fall.  Needless to say, those willing to climb the mountain in this fashion need not waste any time doing so.

As is the case with many big mountains, Mount Elbrus can create its own weather.  The picture shows a lenticular cloud that has formed over the summit.  As a rule, a lenticular doesn't bode well for a climber and usually means bad weather.  In this case, the weather did turn very bad and a climber lost his life descending the mountain in the storm when he lost his way and fell into a crevasse the night before we were scheduled to summit.

After severe weather prevented us from making our originally scheduled summit attempt, we were given a narrow window of opportunity the following day.  After climbing in darkness since 1:00 a.m. , we approached the col, a saddle between to twin summits of Mount Elbrus.  Here the sun casts its light on the summit ridge as Tom Milne climbs toward the col.

Once we reached the col, the sun was a welcome friend as it warmed us.  We'd been climbing in near zero (°F) conditions and some of our team members were not doing well.  In this picture, Howard Jones was enjoying the warmth of the early morning sunshine.  He was also enjoying the realization that the summit was probably less than an hour away. 

As we got higher and higher on the mountain, the views below became ever more magnificent.  In this picture, some monster mountains look small below from our vantage point near the highest point in Europe.  We also were delighted to see that the weather was continuing to be climber-friendly as we continued on our way.

July 16, 2002 at 9:40 a.m., Howard Jones is seen standing on the summit of the highest mountain on the European continent.  Words are too inadequate to describe the beautiful vistas visible in all directions.  With picture taking, hand-shaking, and a rest, Tom Kelly and Howard Jones spent an hour and a half relishing the accomplishment on the summit.  Then the weather window began to close and a storm started moving in, so they moved out.

As we began our descent off the summit ridge and into the col, we saw other rope teams still headed up the mountain.  The views remained spectacular for another hour or so, but then the weather closed in on us.  We finally arrived back at our camp at just below 14,000 feet at around 3:00 p.m. that afternoon.  All in all, it was about a 14 hour summit day.

Climbers are frequently asked "Why do you climb?"  There are as many different answers as there are climbers.  If climbers are honest with themselves, there are no simple answers.  The reasons are many and complex.  However, I suspect that central to all of them is an appreciation of and need to search for beauty.  There is no way a camera can completely capture the sense of awe one feels while high on a mountain and nature reveals its beauty in ways not normally seen.

As is the tradition following a big mountain climb, the group meets on the final night to have dinner and say good-bye.  Here are the members of "Ten Flags" at their farewell dinner in Moscow.  Until we meet again . . .  See you on the next summit.