Weather Delays Elbrus Summit Attempt

1 August 2013:

Hi everyone this is Scott Patch with a Elbrus expedition dispatch for August 1st 2013.

Today was a much deserved rest day!! We spent our time in the sun visiting with other team members, exploring the mountain around us, meeting new friends on other teams, learning yoga poses from Pramila and gaining vast amounts of knowledge from Ryan Vlasak and his ten point scale to success.

Tomorrow we will leave our basecamp at 2:00 am for our 2nd summit attempt. The weather forecast looks favorable and reports from teams summiting today were very good regarding avalanche danger higher up.

It's going to be a big day ... when we make it back down to basecamp we have to back up and quickly head down the mountain to the town of Azau.

Thanks for following our expedition.


31 July 2013:

Hi everyone this is Scott Patch with a Elbrus dispatch for July 31 2013.

We started our summit attempt this morning to clear skies and light winds. As the night turn to dawn the winds decided to pick up on us. The strong winds continued with us for the rest of the day. Our high point was the saddle at 5340 meters (17,519 feet). The slopes above the saddle were to unsafe for our liking. So we left the saddle and returned to the huts. Tomorrow we will rest and see what happens after that.


30 July 2013:

Hey everyone this is Scott Patch with an Elbrus dispatch for July 30th 2013.

Today we woke to beautiful clear skis after it snowed most of last night. We had an excellent breakfast and got ready to head up the mountain for our 3rd and finale acclimatization hike. We had about 2 hours of climbing with clear skis before the weather started coming in. Occasionally the clouds would part for some breathtaking views of Elbrus and the surrounding mountains. We reached our objective for acclimatizing and headed back down the mountain for a great dinner.

After dinner it was preparation time because tomorrow, early morning, we'll leave for summit. We'll take another look at everything early morning but all signs are pointing for a good summit day.

Thanks for following our expedition and we look forward to posting news tomorrow!

 

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