Entries from Elbrus Southside
There are many exciting aspects to this adventure in Russia. And today certainly was one of them. Our team enjoyed a beautiful day exploring the rich history and culture of Moscow. Svetlana was our city tour guide and she whisked us around town explaining so many things it is hard to remember. I do though remember how cool the Kremlin is as well as Red Square. We visited Cathedral after Cathedral where the artistry will take your breath away. It was enough that when it was over I had to pass out and take a siesta! Now, our team is refreshed and we are looking forward to another great evening in town. However, it will be back to business soon as we plan on departing tomorrow for the mountain.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Hello from Russia! Most of the team is here and we will be meeting the rest in a couple of days. I am excited as ever to visit this great place once again!
In the Moscow streets I saw the typical herds of tour buses visiting this beautiful city. I saw brides and grooms holding hands placing their lock of committed love on the bridge of trees. I made dinner reservations at my favorite restaurant where neither of us could understand each other and we all smiled and laughed.
This is one of my favorite adventures! We are tourists. And we are welcome with open arms to the wonderful people of this country. We just finished dinner and yes those that know me, I had beef carpaccio and pasta with truffles finished with a double espresso. Yes, the life of a mountain guide!
Tomorrow we will enjoy a beautiful city tour where we continue to learn the deep history and culture of Russia. I like to rely on heavy images and videos. After all, who wants to read my incoherent ramblings. A picture speaks a thousand words. So stay tuned and enjoy our adventure!
RMI Guide JJ Justman and the team
Our final night in St. Petersburg!
The team had a great last day here in Russia, with a visit to several beautiful churches full of mosaic's. We then paid a visited the beautiful and very famous Hermitage Museum, were we saw paintings and sculptures by many well known artist including Picasso and Rembrandt, and countless treasures Russia has collected over the century's. We took a small break and wrapped up the day with a wonder evening boat cruise to see this amazing city by water.
It's been a amazing adventure here in Russia, but it's time to say our goodbyes and return to family and loved ones.
Thanks for following,
RMI Guide Casey Grom and the happy crew!
Thank you for the posts. It is great to be able to share in almost real time from half way round the world..Miami Florida. Gregory Waltz is our nephew,
Posted by: Eddie & Shuyu on 8/5/2014 at 5:38 pm
Yesterday was a rest day for us in Cheget! Most of us took it easy, relaxed, packed up gear, and did a little exploring around the Baksan Valley. Rumor has it that a few trout were caught and cooked for lunch!
Today was our travel day from the mountain to St. Petersburg. It was a pretty long day with the four-hour bus ride to the airport and then a three-hour flight. It was a pretty uneventful day, but the team is doing very well. Everyone is happy to be here in this beautiful city and looking forward to our city tour tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Good job, Kim, Liz, and everybody! Be nice to the folks in St. Petersburg. Remember: you represent America.
Posted by: Eric Y. on 8/5/2014 at 9:19 am
You all look great. Hope you get a chance to see some of the Hermitage.
Posted by: Eddie & Shuyu on 8/4/2014 at 2:51 pm
Success! We did it!
We officially stood on top of the highest point in Europe. It was the nicest day I've ever had here on Elbrus- clear, calm, and great overall climbing conditions! Add on top of that our local guide Vladimir (hero) not only negotiated a snow cat ride of a life time, but he broke trail all day to help us achieve our goal. The team did a great job of climbing and taking care of themselves all day.
We enjoyed the summit and amazing views for about 20 minutes before descending back to camp, where we had a quick lunch and headed all the way back to Cheget for hot showers and beer! We have just wrapped up the evening with dinner and are headed out to explore the Cheget nightlife.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and a happy crew!
August 2, 2014
Posted by: Casey Grom
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Elbrus Southside
Elevation: 18,510'
Casey Grom and his Mt. Elbrus team reached the summit! Everyone is down safe and they will check in later today.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
On The Map
Wow. Looks like a clear sky and beautiful weather. Good for you. Congratulations!
Posted by: Fernando de Aragon on 8/2/2014 at 6:33 pm
Congratulations !!! Great summit picture. Thanks to the guides for everything. Enjoy your. success.
Posted by: Josie on 8/2/2014 at 9:41 am
August 1, 2014
Posted by: Casey Grom
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Elbrus Southside
Elevation: 12,000'
Hello from Mt. Elbrus -
Today the team got up a little early to make use of the firm snow to practice using our crampons, and we had a refresher on self-arrest too. After our morning session we enjoyed breakfast and then relaxed near camp chatting with other climbers till lunchtime. Shortly after lunch we had our summit talk where we discussed all aspects of the climb to come and then spent the remainder of the afternoon packing and finalizing all of our gear we will need for the climb.
Everyone has their face mask ready in case the wind howls like it did on my last climb. And we even managed to play a game of trivia where the winner gets to make a satellite phone call from the summit. So if there's someone out there who's favorite musical group is Krewella and loves Simba. Then expect a call around 1am. Which will be roughly 8:30-9am for us.
We'll check in again tomorrow after our big climb.
Wish us luck!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
On The Map
So good to hear your voice! Earlier, I read the blog about the trivia question and thought that you might know that stuff! Enjoy the summit
Posted by: Joanne on 8/2/2014 at 4:46 am
Have fun on your summit climb! Casey is great at getting everyone to the top safely and with a smile on their face.
Posted by: Eric Y. on 8/1/2014 at 10:49 am
It was another beautiful day here on Mt. Elbrus! We woke to clear skies, calm winds and a amazing view of the enormous Caucasus range. We had our standard breakfast of porridge, boiled eggs, assorted meats, cheeses and coffee.
Today was our planned acclimatization day and the team set shortly after 8:30 and hiked for about 3 hours uphill and reached about 15,000', which was a new record for some! Along the way we ran into former RMI guide Craig Van Hoy. It was nice seeing an old friend and chatting with other Americans. We enjoyed the views took a few photos and then headed back down to camp for another amazing hot lunch cooked up by Russia's finest, Albina! The remainder of the afternoon has been spent relaxing in camp, listening to the thunder outside and taking naps.
All is well and the team is looking forward to doing a little technical training and resting tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
On The Map
I see you’re making great progress, Liz I know you’re having a great time! Could someone explain to me what porridge is? I can wikipidea it or I can dig deep in my chef roots, but can you have someone please explain!
Posted by: John Schupbach on 7/31/2014 at 9:36 pm
July 30, 2014
Posted by: Casey Grom
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Elbrus Southside
Elevation: 12,000'
We started our day at a reasonable hour with breakfast at 8:00 am; we had porridge, fried eggs, and of course plenty of the Starbucks coffee we brought along.
After breakfast, we finished the remainder of our packing and headed over to the gondola and hitched a ride further up the mountain to our new base camp. Two gondola rides and one super long single chair lift delivered us to our new home just over 12,000'. Our new home is basically a retrofitted shipping container, and to be honest it's reasonably comfortable.
We had a nice lunch prepared by our wonderful cook, Albina. She's a great cook, but I think is a little over worked as she's been up here since my last trip.
With our gondola and chair lift rides this morning, we needed some post-lunch exercise so we headed out to stretch our legs and continue our acclimatization process by hiking for a little over an hour and gaining well over a thousand feet of elevation. Everyone did great and we are now back at camp watching the evening clouds roll in and getting ready for dinner.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
On The Map
The RMI Mt. Elbrus July 18th Team spent their last night in Russia on a boat tour through the canals of St. Petersburg. Follow along with them via the video below.
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Hi JJ!
I’ll be keeping an eye on you. Good luck to you and the team for a safe climb.
-Larry
Posted by: Larry Seaton on 7/12/2015 at 9:29 pm
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