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RE: Expedition to Mount Kazbek: Prelude & day 1
Nice:) congrats, how many times out of those three attempts did you succeed? It is a serious mountain, just you don't need as much technical skills, theoretically you can walk it up.
This time was my first summit. 5 years ago I had to turn back from saddle, 100 meters before summit due to bad weather. 3 years ago I escorted my team-mate down, who had altitude sickness. This time we used different route and summited on 8-th day, so we had very good acclimatization. Technicaly easy, that's right, but if anything goes wrong, then some skills can save a life.
Yeah, I totally agree, all technicalities are still important for safety, it is a dangerous mountain. When I was climbing, there was no snowing for several days, so I saw a lot of crevasses.
A bit unlucky, but congrats on your summit. Altitude sickness kills me at night, I had to stop last time on the saddle, but this time we just climbed from betlemi hut and nights are not as harsh on me there at night:) thought the climb was hard from there, but we did reach the peak. Which route did you use?
We jumped out from marshutka some 20-30 km-s before Stepantsminda and trekked along another valley from south side. After crossing a mountain pass near Ortsveri peak, we reached to Gergeti glacier and settled our camp to 4300m on regular route.
Wow, I never heard of this route, sounds interesting, I want to try out it as well:D from your own experience, how was the views? Is this route more beautiful?
I was in Svaneti, climbing on Tetnuldi, so didn't visit Steemit for a while. I'll be back at home next week, I'll try to make some map scetch or I can give cordinates of our campsites, then it's easy to improvise the route.
All people in our group enjoyed this journey. We descended on classic route and everybody thought, we made a good decision :)
I would really appreciate if you could share at least coordinations of campsites! Maybe one day I could try that too. It is way mor einteresting to use different routes on your way forward and back.
I've never been to Svaneti, so I'm definitely returning to Georgia at least once more:) is Tetnuldi hard to climb? From ppl I was climbing Mt. Kazbek I heard only about Mt. Lahili/Layla.
Okay, easiest and fastest way to share my routes and campsites is sharing my Endomondo records day by day:
Day I: https://www.endomondo.com/users/10638593/workouts/1163440369
Day II: https://www.endomondo.com/users/10638593/workouts/1163440399
Day III: https://www.endomondo.com/users/10638593/workouts/1163440429
Day IV: https://www.endomondo.com/users/10638593/workouts/1163440450
Day VI: https://www.endomondo.com/users/10638593/workouts/1163440494
Summit Day: https://www.endomondo.com/users/10638593/workouts/1163440517
Descending: https://www.endomondo.com/users/10638593/workouts/1163440544
As you can see, summit day we had the fastest moving speed! There's no any hotels, shops, restaurants, horse transportation nor people on the route. Even no trails in most sections. Mountain pass on day VI is badass, specially in bad weather conditions... If you try it, take your best survivor friends with you, don't go alone! ;)
Good luck!