Mt. Elbrus
June 28, 2006
Dan Mallory and Laura Mallory
Elevation
18,510 ft (5,642 meters)
Location
Russia
Range
Caucasus
Coordinates
43°21’18″N 42°26’21″E
First ascent
1874 by Gardner, Grove, Walker, Knubel, and Akhia Sottaiev
Our route
Baksan Valley
On June 18, 2006 Laura Mallory, age 18 and Dan Mallory, age 55 departed Canada for Moscow, Russia and ultimately to Mineral’nye Vody, Russia. The Baksan Valley is the base of the climb to the top of the west summit of Mt. Elbrus at 18,510 feet (5,642 meters), the highest mountain in Europe located in the Caucasus mountains of South West Russia.
Although on first glance, the mountain appears to be an oversized ski hill, the month before our arrival, 12 people died on the mountain and the week before they were still looking for some members of the party. Many have perished by being over confident and/or unprepared for the challenges of Mt. Elbrus.
We made four acclimatization climbs and each time around 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) the air was buzzing with electricity from the incoming storms which would cause our hair to stand on end / some very frightening moments.
On June 27, 2006, we awoke at 2:30 a.m. for our summit attempt. After starting the climb in a snow storm, the weather cleared as we ascended the mountain to produce a perfectly clear day on our arrival at the top at 10:45 a.m. The pinnacle of rock at the summit allows for a magnificent 360 degree panorama of the surrounding mountains and valleys. We drank in the moment and prepared for our descent with great satisfaction.
