Full Thread: Traveling in Russia
View Single Post
Old March 29th, 2018 #47
Alex Him
Senior Member
 
Alex Him's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 6,834
Blog Entries: 219
Smile

Winter trekking in the vicinity of Elbrus - part 2. To the waterfall "Girl's braids" and to the observatory.





0:24 - Today is the 4th of January. The time is twenty to ten am. Now we are near the Garabashi River.

1:09 - "The village of Terskol (Kabardino-Balkaria Republic)."

1:10 - Here we can see the building of the ministry and 100 meters away begins a trail to the waterfall and the observatory.

2:00 - At the very beginning of our route there are unforeseen obstacles. These are cows and bulls. The first obstacle we have already passed. A young bull ran to us.

2:25 - We walk along a well trodden trail. Temperature is about -5 degrees Celsius.

3:36 - It's a meandering trail. It turns from one side to the other side.

4:25 - We can see Cheget mountain.

4:55 - We climbed to a height of 2,400 meters.

5:40 - Time 12 o'clock in the afternoon. Height of 2,460 meters. We decided to rest a little here.

9:20 - The higher we rise, the more likely that we will be in the clouds.

9:45 - Height is about 2,630 meters. There are an unpleasant wind.

10:35 - Below we can see the Azau glade. There is a traffic jam from cars. It was like this since the morning. Although the time is half past one pm.

10:53 - Height of 2,690 meters.

11:33 - On the left we can see a very beautiful precipice.

12:10 - Now we can see the waterfall.

12:19 - The time is twenty to two pm. We almost came to the waterfall.

17:38 - Here is the view from the close distance of the waterfall "Girl's braids". Height of 2,850 meters.

19:12 - The time is half past two pm. We begin the descent. The way down will be more simple. But we will not hurry up because there are many slippery areas on the way here.

20:40 - We moved away from the waterfall by 100-150 meters. And now we will go to the left to the observatory. The distance to it is about 3 kilometers. And at the same time we must rise to a height of about 300 meters.

21:28 - Height of 2,820 meters.

21:45 - Height of 2,900 meters. And now we can see the observatory. We met a girl. She did not reach the observatory. She told us that the snow is very deep. So we decided to go straight up.

23:42 - In the beginning there is deep snow and then where the stones are visible there is no snow there anymore.

24:54 - The snow is very deep and therefore it is very difficult for us to walk.

25:24 - Height of 2,990 meters.

26:50 - Height of 2,036 meters. [Of course this is an error - The height should be 3,036 meters - Alex Him] We are already walking along the rocks. Therefore, our path has become a bit easier.

28:50 - We reached the observatory. Height of 3,095 meters. It's cold and there's a strong wind. Now we immediately begin the descent. The stones on the way were very unreliable.

29:33 - This is the observatory and its environs. It's five o'clock pm.

30:10 - The wind intensifies. We try to avoid stones because of their unreliability.

30:35 - On the right we can see Mount Elbrus covered with clouds.

31:07 - We did not eat today, but we decided not to cook food. We decided to go to a cafe.

32:17 - We went out to the trail. The difference in altitude between the trail and the observatory is 130 meters. We went down here in about 13 minutes.

33:26 - We went down to the crossroads to the observatory and to the waterfall. Next we will go with the lanterns.

33:56 - The moon has appeared.

34:12 - It's seven o'clock pm. We descended in 2 hours. In total, we passed today 16,830 meters. Now we will go to a cafe.





__________________
Where should they dig the Very Deep Pit?
Piglet said that the best place would be somewhere where a Heffalump was, just before he fell into it, only about a foot farther on.
(c) Alan Alexander Miln