CET Neva tours . mountaineering, climbing, trekking, ski tours, kayaking, rafting

Ascent of Elbrus from the North side

          CET Neva agency in St. Petersburg organizes guided ascents of the  West and East Elbrus (5642, 5621 m), the highest European peak, from it"s North side. Participants climb up the summit via pioneering way of 1829.

   July 10 of that year, mountain dweller Kilar Khashirov, indigenous guide in Russian expedition headed by general Emmanuel, first reached the Eastern Summit of Elbrus (5621 m). Anyone who wants the taste of the great untouched outdoors should be pleased with the ascent because its route passes far away of the civilizations. There are no highways, cable lifts and comfortable mountain huts in the area to the North of Elbrus. Neither there are good paths in that region sparsely visited by tourists" or climbers" groups. This is why the Northern Elbrus Region preserves till the present its native, virgin look. Ascent of Elbrus from the North side is more challenging enterprise compared with that from the South.

             From Kislovodsk-city the way goes across a spacious waste plateau cut with deep canyons of Kuban tributaries (Black Sea basin) and rivers flowing into Terek (Caspian basin). By bad enough earth roads one goes through Kichbalyk village and valley and, passing by tourist camp "Narzan valley", Kharbaz-river valley, mountains Tuzluk (2585 m) and Sirkh (3098 m), arrives to Dzhili-Su place. At the end one descents into the Kizyl-Su valley where Base Camp is installed on the General Emmanuel Glade. Close by the Camp, the "Silver Spring" wells out but only for two weeks during a year . at the end of July and beginning of August.

             The way leads us through the silence of the rocky desert looking like a moon landscape to the end moraine and glacier lake. Camp 1 is organized up there, at 3730-meter altitude in the immediate vicinity of the North Refuge hut apt to house 12-14 persons. The hut had been constructed for seismologists about 14 years ago by students of a teacher"s training college. The construction materials were delivered with helicopter. An acclimatization ascent from here up to the Lentz Rocks . a rocky ridge at 4750-5100 m . and back down to the hut is considered to be reasonable.

           

            The further way passes on crevassed ice-snow slope upwards to the Lentz Rocks and then along the Rocks to the East Summit or on firn fields with dangerous snow-covered crevasses up to the Saddle and from there, on steep ice-snow slope, to the West Summit.

             A broad outlook is opened from the summits to majestic panorama of the MainCaucasianRange stretching from the Black Sea to the East-South-East to the Caspian Sea. All the horizon is fill up with mountains. The descent follows the ascent way.

    

    

   

  

   

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