Hungry for a challenge? Fancy doing something a bit different with your summer? HCX’s Nicole Noordhoek tells us of her summer in the Russian mountains, her greatest challenge yet…
The wind whipped through me, pressing the multiple layers of wet, frozen clothing against my chest. I could feel the cold within my bones. I said it again: ‘you can do this!’. Screaming against the wind, my desperation escaped me: ‘you have to do this!’. The person I was yelling at: my mountain guide. I was, in fact, half way up Mt. Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe, and one of the Seven Summits.
The lull of the hot summer day had almost reached its peak. I was sitting at home, just as I had been the day before, and the day before that. For the past six months, I had been desperately looking for an internship – something to keep me occupied, something to avoid the exact position I was now in. No such luck. Between rejection emails, I found myself booking a trip to Russia. If I was not going to do an internship to add to my CV, I had to do something else. Mt. Elbrus it was.
Located in the Caucasus Mountain Range, Mt. Elbrus is a dormant volcano gracing the skies at 5’642 meters. It is considered as one of the world’s deadliest peaks with a high ratio of climber deaths to climbers. In 2004, the mountain took a total of 48 climbers. The biggest danger: the weather.
Fast-forward two weeks. It is 2am on the 27th of July. I have barely slept; the high altitude has only accorded me a couple of hours of light, fitful sleep. Despite my tiredness, sore muscles, and fear, it is time to get out of bed. It is summit night. Two hours later, donned with down jackets, goggles, and crampons, we are walking in single file. The pace is slow, snail-like; we have to preserve our strength. It is going to be a long day.
Hours later, the sun has finally risen. We are standing at the bottom of a fixed rope section. I clip on and start the treacherous climb up, unaware of the sudden change in weather. As I inch up, I think to myself that the top must be near. We had been climbing for almost 6 hours and I was starting to get tired. At the top of the section, I unclip and crouch down a few meters away, waiting for the rest of my group.
Suddenly, unaware before, I was now alert. The wind swept across the face of the mountain. The clouds rolled in, obscuring the sun. Without deliberation or debate, we headed back down the fixed rope. My wish of standing on the summit would not be granted. Once we reached the bottom of the rope, the severity of the situation sunk in. Visibility was limited to the person in front of me; the temperatures had dropped to approximately -15 Celsius; the strength of the wind routinely slammed us against the mountain; and the snow falling around us obscured any hope we had of retracing our footsteps down the mountain. We were in trouble.
Over the next 6 hours, we trudged in, what we hoped was, the right direction. It felt like we were going in circles. At that point, it was getting dark, temperatures were dropping even lower, and snow had given way to hail. It quickly became evident that, like us, our guide did not have a single idea of where to go. Displaying his desperation, he dropped down to his knees and started praying. Fear struck my body like never before.
More determined than ever to make it down alive, I started looking for the little red flags that marked the route. Whether the visibility bettered or we finally found our luck, I saw the first of many flags. Scrambling along the uneven path, drained of energy, I yelled at everyone to keep going. I was determined to get down. Struggling from flag to flag, all the while screaming at those behind me to keep going, the path seemed never-ending. My hope, along with my energy, was evaporating rapidly.
Suddenly, I came face-to-face with three men. In my delusional state, I asked them whether they were going up. The answer was drowned in the deafening sounds of the storm. What I did hear were 5 words that caused me to drop to my knees and start crying: ‘we are the Mountain Rescue’. We were safe.
While the remainder of the scramble downhill drained every ounce of energy that remained from our dilapidated bodies, the desire to get down propelled us to go on. When the snowcat dropped us at our camp, covered in ice, snow, and rain, it was 9pm. We were lucky to be alive.
Our summit attempt spun the course of 16 hours. Back at camp, it took us significant time to warm-up. The trek down was smooth in comparison. Two days later, I returned home with slight frostnip on two fingers; I counted myself lucky. Once home, I enjoyed the warmth of summer and spending time with my family. Oh, and I found myself an internship.
Photo Credits:
Nicole Noordhoek