Pictures

July 21 - Home

Well my friends our trip has ended. We left Moscow and flew for about 10 hours to Washington, D.C. From there we waited for 5 hours for our flight to Denver. I am going to attempt to add some pictures of our trip to the blog. Thank you for following our journey from beginning to end! It was a fantastic adventure!

July 20 - Moscow

It's our last full day in Russia and we are feeling blue. It seems as if we've just arrived in the city and now it's time to go. Back to the van this morning at 9:00 for a short ride to the Kremlin. Today our guide has tickets for us to enter the walls and visit the cathedrals located inside. First we visit the Assumption Cathedral which was used as a stable in 1812! Now all of its frescoes have been restored. This church is one of my favorites! After visiting three more cathedrals we see the Tsar Bell. It is the largest bell in the world weighing 202 tons! Unfortunately it broke in the foundry during a fire. We run back to our awaiting van in the pouring rain. It has been raining since we arrived yesterday. Now we ride to the State Tretyakov Gallery which has the world's best collection of Russian icons. After lunch our group splits up because most members are heading to the airport for their flights home. We walk back to our hotel happy to finally be on our own! Tonight we are off to the Bolshoi Theatre for a German opera Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose). It's a magnificent theatre renovated recently. The performance lasts for about 4 hours with two intermissions. What a lovely way to spend our final evening in Moscow!

July 19 - To Moscow

We left Terskol after a few hours of sleep last night. We had dinner last night at a charming restaurant with a trout pond located in front of the outdoor dining area. The idea was to catch your own fish which would be grilled for your dinner! At first there weren't any fish willing to give up their life for our meals. But after 15 minutes or so we started catching fish easily! It was a lot of fun. Driving back to the airport in Mineralnye Vody was not so fun. Driving at high speeds in the middle of the night dodging random cows here and there in a van almost out of gas without any open gas stations isn't our idea of a good time. Our flight to Moscow only took two hours. After lunch at our hotel we piled into a van for a city tour. In just a few short hours we managed to see the Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral, Sparrow Hill, Moscow State University and a convent. Our lead guide, Mike, is celebrating his birthday so we are all going out to celebrate at 8:00 this evening. We are looking forward to his party!

July 18 - Day Hike

I know, I know. Can't we ever rest?! Well I guess not. Our last day here and we have decided to go for a hike with our two guides, Igor and Sasha. We hire a van and head into a beautiful valley located in the border region between Russia and Georgia. Our permit from earlier in the week is still valid and the armed guards at the checkpoint let us through again. The weather continues to be marvelous. Sunny and warm with just a few clouds near the peaks. Our hike is easy and slow along a raging river. Glacier melt coming from up the valley. Wildflowers are blooming everywhere, some I recognize from home and many that I don't. After two hours we reach the end of the trail. There are four buildings here that scientists used for glacier study. We sit and eat a snack in one of them. Now we are back at the Seven Summits Club using their free Wi-Fi. Tonight we are going out to dinner at a restaurant where you can catch your own trout for dinner! We leave Terskol very early tomorrow morning (2:30a.m.) to catch a 7:30 a.m. flight to Moscow. We are looking forward to the next part of our Russian adventure!

July 17 - Cheget

You can imagine how excited we were this morning when we walked in to breakfast and saw two pancakes with red raspberry jam waiting to be gobbled up! Yum! Since we climbed Elbrus so quickly we now have two full days in the Baskan Valley for sightseeing, and today we are walking to Cheget. Cheget is a small ski town only 30 minutes from Terskol. When we arrive there we take the chairlift about halfway up the mountain. From there we take a very short hike to a beautiful alpine lake. We sit in the warm sun and drink it all in. Steep mountains covered in snow and sprinkled with glaciers, beautiful wildflowers blooming pink and purple and a clear blue sky. Gorgeous. Back at the lift we ride to the top where we can easily see Elbrus across the valley. We pose for pictures that will be used on Christmas cards and team pictures too. After lunch on the mountain (more shashlik and beer) we return to the base and head to the market. Lots of interesting homemade items to buy everywhere you look. Would you believe we purchase a small jar of tiny pinecones in sugar syrup? They are really good, believe it or not! Finally we walk back to our hotel and begin the job of repacking and organizing our gear. Our last dinner with Fatimah's cooking and collapse into bed!

July 16 - Off the Mountain

Another morning of waking up in the hut to coffee and bacon. After returning from the summit yesterday afternoon we ate some soup and fell into our sleeping bags dead tired! We all slept soundly through the night. After breakfast of rice and bacon and mashed potatoes we quickly packed up our gear and left Elbrus. Thirty minutes of hiking followed by two chairlift rides we were back where we started from just three days ago. The team decided to celebrate right away at a small outdoor cafe. We all ordered salad (tomatoes and cucumbers), shashlik (like shishkabobs) and beer. It felt wonderful resting in the warm sun! Later in the afternoon we were invited to the sauna at our hotel. According to tradition the sauna must be HOT, the plunge pool FREEZING cold and an area set aside to rest and have a drink of water or tea or beer. Three times through this circuit and you've done well! On my third turn one of or guides, Sasha, had me lie down on the top bench of the sauna so she could flog me with two wet bunches of wet oak leaves! It felt the best on my tired feet and legs! We have to unpack our wet stinky gear but neither one of us has the energy to do it today.