It is always sad to return back from the mountains to a big city where although something is beautiful but civilization inexorably breaks into awareness and replaces primeval figures, blown by Mountains. Delight, feeling of flight and dissolubility in mountain surrounding are changed with ordinariness and mad rhythm of city circulation, where it is impossible to stop and look round…And only the hope that all that can be repeated makes heart beat quickly and me live in feeling of holiday – new meeting with mountains. Several photos will help you to understand and feel the beauty of Prielbrusje, that is available every spring and this time of the year, when the air is still bound by cosmic cold of high altitudes, when the world around you is uninhabited and covered with virgin snow, and all these is yours, the Elbrus will please us with peculiar sunrises and sunsets.

Some technical details for those who planes to make an ascent in spring:

•  The most part of the slopes of the Elbrus in April of this year from the altitude 4300 up to about 5000 m represented open winter ice and demanded organizing belay on ice-hooks for passing, but it was possible to round the strip to the left along the firn with small sections covered with ice, also using a rope and ice-axes for belay (it was better to sharpen crampons before the ascent).

•  Morning temperatures on the altitude of “barrels” (mountaineering lodge) were about 15-20 degrees below zero, on the top they could go down to 40-50 degrees below zero, under wind of 20-30 km/hour.

•  It was expeditiously to climb on skis up to the altitude 4200-4300, but as it was problematically to put on crampons under heavy wind, it was possible to give up pleasure of skiing down to “barrels” and changed skis to mountain boots in mountaineering lodge, making the ascent more “comfortable”

Generally speaking, modest snowfalls covered the slopes of Elbrus by fluffy snow, making descents unforgettable and pleasing. It was possible to descend from the slopes of Elbrus nearly down to the doors of the hotel on the glade Tcheget.

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