Balkarian Express Couloir
[ Mount Elbrus ]

“The Mountains Are Calling and I Must Go” – that’s what John Muir said. Perhaps, if you are not a mountain person you just don’t know what that feeling is. It’s unfamiliar. It’s hard to understand. And it’s hard to explain. But to those whose heart lives in the mountains, this feeling is very familiar. It feels like coming home. Because… Home is where your heart is.

Sometimes it just becomes too much of everything all around in today’s life. And everything seems to be fine, but somehow you feel too stuffy. Too stuffy from people, from conversations, from thoughts, from social networks, WiFi, from everything. It’s hard to somehow specifically describe this feeling. You just know you gotta go. You know it’s time to go where your heart lives. It’s time to go home. At least for a little while. You feel like your inner voice is clearly calling you. Sometimes, when you are about to go for a serious project, common sense tells you: “Don’t. Why all this risk?” But the heart whispers: “Go!” And we go to the mountains. We go Home. Afterwards, when we get down, it is always almost impossible to express everything that it would seem just now was in your head and in your soul a few minutes ago. It’s fleeting. And that’s why it’s so special. Not many people ever get a chance to experience this feeling even once in a lifetime.

I would very much like this blog to become a place for me where I can leave the freshest impressions of our projects, of what we do at RMH behind the scenes, write about who we are and what we believe in.

Mountains… Thank you for being there. Thank you for helping us find ourselves again and again. Thank you for giving us peace of mind. Thank you for letting us go and come back alive. Thank you for the happiness. Thank you for the dream. Thank you for letting us live the dream, climbing, skiing and guiding. Thank you for the right people. Thank you for these moments. Thank you for the life we live. Thank you for home. Thank you for everything.

Balkarian Express Couloir is an incredible place. It’s a beautiful, steep narrow line that challenges you from the start and alluring with its greatness. It is located at the foot of Mount Elbrus and is visible from the Azau glade. There are two possible options to climb to the starting point: either in the forehead or along the ridge of the North Circus of Mount Cheget. We climbed up on the forehead. The average slope is 60 degrees. There are only 6 people who have skied this line throughout history. This time there were 2 of us. Me and Jose. Express let us in and let us out safely. For that, we thank him.

We set alarms at 3:20 a.m, put the cameras and walkie-talkies on charge, gathered our gear a little in a heap and went to bed at 23:00. I couldn’t fall asleep for a single minute because of thoughts and excitement. I just forced myself to lay there on my back with my eyes closed for these 4 hours, realizing that we need to get at least a little rest before the climb, because the day is gonna be long and we have to be pretty fast to climb it and ski it all the way down until 10:30 in the morning, before the sun heats the left side of the big cornice at the top to minimize the risk of an avalanche.

At 3:00 a.m. in the morning I got up so that I was not in a hurry to pack up and have my Maté drink. I threw on my jacket and went outside to look at the sky and check the weather. The weather was perfect. There were many stars in the sky, the moon was shining, and there was a slight frost, which is good for the snowpack stability.

In 20 minutes, Serge and Jose also got up. We quickly packed our bagpacks, put the harnesses on, got out of RMH Lodge, dropped into Serge’s car and he drove us to Azau Glade (the very foot of Mount Elbrus). In 10 minutes, Jose and I fastened the skis to our backpacks, turned on our headlamps, and moved down to the river. The approach to the couloir begins right away as you cross the river at the bottom of the Azau Gorge. Serge turned around and went back to the Lodge to sleep. He will be waiting for us down there in the morning after we descent.

RMH Lead Guide - George Bushuev. Photo: Vitaly Stegno. © All Rights Reserved.

Approaching the couloir, it seems that it is completely vertical. A huge giant pyramid shape wall looks down at you, making you feel like a tiny ant. At about 4 o’clock in the morning, we started climbing the couloir along the frozen outfalls of wet avalanches and by dawn we were already on the icefall part. It took us about 40 minutes and 5 ice-screws to climb an ice part and we continued the climb.

When you climb head-on along the line of descent, it’s a special feeling. You get a certain connection with the mountain, and most importantly, you can feel the snowpack and make the right decision at the top whether to ski or not. It is important. Especially when it’s a serious and complex line. When you climb a different route from the descent line, you don’t have such possibility.

This time the snow was super different, from the frozen parts of the avalances, hard wind crust and firn to the deep wind formed snow at the edges, into which we fell knee-deep trying to stay on the side as close as possible to the rocks from the center of the coulour. When we were working on the line from down there, we were hoping for that soft, deep shadowy powder in the center from top to bottom so much , but this time it wasn’t there. We were climbing, periodically replacing each other and making a trail. Mountain goats ran over the cliffs above us, watching us climbing. The couloir itself was incredibly beautiful from the inside. There is a huge rock wall rises to the left, thanks to which, the sun practically doesn’t fall into the couloir at all throughout the day and the snow remains soft and deep until mid-April. But this time, it wasn’t like that.

RMH Lead Guide - George Bushuev. Photo: Vitaly Stegno. © All Rights Reserved.

At about 100 meters from the top, the snow became super hard and pretty slippery, more like a hard firn, and the slope was getting steeper and steeper. We were thinking to keep climbing straight up until this doesn’t feel good, but in the next 30 meters, assessing the situation and all the risks, we’ve decided not to climb to the very top and start a little lower from where we were at that moment, not reaching this very last section to the small summit above the couloir, which is at the right side of the entrance to the “Express”. It’s a serious line, and we didn’t want to ski on the concrete on the 65-degree slope and plus to that, the sun had already begun to warm the left side of the couloir entrance with a huge cornice above it. We carefully took off our backpacks and made a small platform with our ski tails, where we could stand together. We took a quick rest, got ready, put our skis on and started the descent. From the very start, we were descending very neatly, keeping an eye on each other, trying to catch the soft snow at the sides as much as possible and stopping in safe places. You always feel a little nervous when you at the top, but then somewhere in the middle you kind of start feeling the slope, having fun and you just send it.

When you do something like this, something risky, pushing your personal limits, all your thoughts are about right here, about right now. You are most focused on this exact moment and you feel it. You don’t think about the past or about the future. You are completely immersed in the present you are in. Perhaps that it is. That’s why we go there. We chase that feeling. You are maximally alive at this moment and that’s what makes it so unbelievable.

The climb took us 5 hours. The descent took about 30 minutes. At 10:00 AM in the morning we were standing at the bottom of the Azau gorge under the warm spring sun, tired and happy. Sergo was already waiting for us. Putting the skis on our shoulders and exhausted by thirst, we went to the closest store for the long-awaited beer. Then, sitting in a restaurant outside and having breakfast, we were sunbathing in the sun stretching out legs on the chairs. We were silently glancing at each other squinting from the sun and smiling. This is happiness. True happiness.

When the mountains are calling, at RMH, we respond and going.