Neither Ryan or I slept particularly well last night.  Although we were tired the impending climb and the sound of the other climbers crashing along the corridor in the small hours ensured our sleep was affected.

Clambering out of bed at 06:30 we made some final equipment checks and made our drinks for today.  Just after 07:00 I headed down for breakfast.  I needed fuelling today as I was scheduled to climb to 4800m.  This acclimatisation trek would be hard work.  I consumed all that was put before me!!

After dropping some items in the lodge safe (items that I wouldn’t need on the mountain) I made my way in full kit to the cable car ready for the ascent.  Because I had 10L of water my luggage weighed just over 35KGs, which I had to carry with one bag on my back and one on front all the way.  That was hard work – especially as I gained altitude quickly in the cable car.

Our third was just one seat which meant that I had to carry all the weight in both hands for the final stretch.  Finally at 10:00 we reached The Barrels, prepared our equipment again, and headed for some much needed lunch.

After lunch we started the trek up to Pastukhov Rocks.  The route was very steep and very hard work with my boots and crampons on.  I had picked up a cough during the night and was finding the climb very hard work.  The cough meant that I had to keep stopping and holding up Ron and Ryan.  After a while I said that they should go on ahead of me.  I was finding that the coughing was using up more energy than the climbing.  Still, I was in the middle of our group but I don’t like climbing that slowly.

After three hours Pastukhov Rocks came into view.  What a view it was too!  I spent several minutes looking down across the glaciers and enjoying the stunning view across the Caucasus range.  Unfortunately, the combination of my cough and the altitude meant I had to stop every 20 steps or so.  I was determined to keep driving myself and reached the top of Pastukhov Rock at 4800m at 15:30.  This was just over three and a half hours after starting the trek which usually takes only three hours.  The main thing was that I made it despite my difficulties and only about 20 minutes after Ron and Ryan arrived.  There are five Brazilian climbers on the mountain who were at least an hour behind us.  We decided, given that the weather had closed in and was now snowing that we would press on back to The Barrels rather than wait for them.

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