Our team arrived in the Baksan Valley at the base of Mount Elbrus yesterday (Friday) afternoon. The weather is unseasonably warm (which is a good thing) and our guide, Tap Richards, is terrific. We went for our first acclimatization hike today. We went from 7,000 feet above sea level at our hotel up to 10,000 feet. We got our first look at the two-headed summit of Elbrus today. Almost everyone on the team has commented that the mountain looks much, MUCH bigger than they imagined. I believe each member of the team appreciates the challenge that is ahead. The team looks strong and everyone is in good spirits.
The first five days in Moscow went relatively smoothly. We visited the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral (the building with all of the different colored cones jutting out from the top), a magnificent new cathedral called the Cathedral of Christ our Savior, the Arabat Outdoor Market, several cool downtown restaurants, and the Moscow subway (something everyone needs to experience at least once). The only problem happened on Thursday afternoon when Jordan Olivero, one of our team members lost his passport – something you don’t want to do anywhere, but especially not in Russia! We made arrangements for him to stay in Moscow because he was unable to board the plane the following day with the team heading to Elbrus. However, the story has a good ending! As of two hours ago (Saturday afternoon) Jordan miraculously arrived at our hotel, new passport in hand, after a series of events that can only be described as God’s grace on our young teammate. So, our team is now complete!
We will be hiking to a glacier tomorrow at around 10,000 feet to practice the team roping technique, ice axe arrest training, and use of our crampons (the sharp blades that go on the bottom of our boots that keep us attached to the ice). We will leave at 7AM tomorrow – Sunday – for our training and we’ll get back to the hotel around 3 or 4PM. Then on Monday morning we’ll make our way to our camp at 14,000 feet. We’ll rest Monday afternoon, do more training and acclimatizing on Tuesday and then, weather permitting, we will make our summit attempt Wednesday morning starting at 1AM!
We are 8 hours ahead of East Coast Time (9 hours ahead of our friends and family in Texas) so we will, for example, be starting our summit attempt on Tuesday at 5PM EST/ 4PM CST. So, please be praying that everyone on our team stays strong and healthy over the next few days.
Finally, as a team we read aloud through the book of Romans while we were in Moscow and it sparked some great discussions among the team. We decided to read through Acts for the remainder of the trip. The loss of Jordan’s passport led us to pray diligently as a team for his return. His arrival was an incredible testament to the whole team of God’s real-world provision against all odds.
We should be able to post one more blog tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be able to use a satellite phone while on the mountain to post additional ones as we move toward the summit. The team wants to thank all of you for your prayer and support.
Carpe Deum! (Seize God!)
Todd Phillips and the Expedition Elbrus Team
