5th – Where Condors Dare

This morning there wasn’t so much waking up as there was realizing it was time to wake up. I hadn’t had much sleep and a lack of drinking when needed throughout the night (my water bottle in the tent had completely frozen during the night) and no real appetite resulted in me being absolutely mentally and physically exhausted in the morning. When the guides did their round when getting up and inquiring statuses of each of us I flat out told them that unless we were to stay an extra night at this location I would likely not be able to continue upwards. Staying an extra night would let me adjust to the altitude and rebuild strength, hopefully making it possible for me to continue in the right direction (that would be upwards, if there was any doubt).

It was soon decided that we would stay an extra night at Cambio as I was far from the only one with problems. Instead of relocating we had a short walk to Nido de Condores app. 200m above us for a gentle acclimatization. For those who were interested the guides added 30-40 minutes when arriving at the camp to gain a bit of extra altitude which in the end brought us up to 5670m, a small success in itself as we thereby had just passed the summit of Elbrus at 5642m.

Back down at Cambio we had snacks and otherwise relaxed with focus on drinking plenty of water, improving acclimatization and trying to avoid potential headache, and worse – serious AMS.

Reports are coming out of Nido de Condores; their water supply is a small lake, still water, only supplied by melted ice from further up (so these days not much). Apparently the water has been contaminated so diarrhea is a frequent occurrence in the camp. I am suddenly a bit happier about only having two camps until the summit and not the three as originally planned.

A helicopter passed us flying down from Nido de Condores – they had apparently picked someone up who had deceased there. I can’t say for sure what had happened, but a mix of not drinking enough, altitude sickness and diarrhea can’t have been good for you. This is not a mountain to underestimate.

Now it’s all about drinking enough water which here tastes horrible and waiting for dinner where I will try to wake up my usually very active appetite. While the rest of the walk up the mountain is nothing but a simple mental game where you ignore any problems you can’t do anything about anyway, I have to admit that I right now feel like I am on the losing side.

And being this close, it’s horribly frustrating.

Another view from Cambio. The plateau down to the left is where camp Canada is located.

Doing nothing and relaxing, and yet this is the view you get.

Sunset.