Seven out of seven on Mount Kazbek
August 2024
Following the successful ascent of Toubkal with Atlas Mountaineering in 2019, I was eager for more. When my guide Connor, proposed a trip to summit Mount Elbrus, one of the world’s seven summits, I was all in. Flights were booked to Russia for a summer 2020 expedition, however a pandemic and a European ‘special operation’ put a grinding holt to those plans. By the time 2024 came around, the dust seemed to have settled on COVID restrictions and Connor proposed a different peak in the same Caucasus mountain range: Mount Kazbek. Approached from the Georgian side, this mountain - Connor told me - has a wilder feel than Elrbus, with extensive glacier travel and no ski infrastructure present. At 5054 m, Kazbek is respectable mountain - one of the world’s ‘ultra prominent’ peaks, and if one counts the Caucasus as Europe, the eighth highest mountain in Europe.
Following a connection in the bustling airport of Instanbul, I arrived in Georgia’s captial of Tbilisi at silly o’clock in the morning. From there I met some of my group, slept and had a rest day in the capital, exploring this intriguing city. With the squad at full strength, we set off north to mountains to begin our multi-day ascent.
Day 1: Gergeti Trinity Church to the Deka Hut: 6 km, 829 m ascent
Following overnight heavy rain, we were relieved to see the morning was bright and dry in the town of Stepantsminda, whilst white capped Kazbek loomed over the smaller hills in the foreground. We got in one of an army of Mitsubishi Delicas that were whizzing up and down the mountainside from the town, to the Kazbek trailhead. From here, horses took our duffle bags with us carrying everything we would need until reaching the higher Bethlemi Hut on the afternoon of the next day.
The climb up to Deka was hot and sweaty on the initial steep slope until we reach a flattening where views of the mountain opened up and a welcome breeze cooled us down.
The Deka Hut was only completed earlier in the year and was in fact still being built when we were there (artificial stone cladding rather than structural elements!). This meant relatively luxurious accommodation with comfy bunk beds, hut slippers provided, good food and even wifi! We spent the rest of the day, chilling out, playing with the mountain dogs and getting to know each other.
Day 2: Deka Hut to Bethlemi Hut: 4 km , 662 m ascent
Day 2 on the mountain dawned with clagged in with mist and the odd spot of rain. After a great breakfast we headed out into the murk with waterproofs donned, however this soon proved to be overkill as the cloud parted, the skies brightened and the temperatures lifted.
After some official business of passport checking by Georgian soldiers - an exercise which our Georgian guide thought was entirely ridiculous - we were soon at the Gergeti glacier. This lower portion of the glacier was dry - i.e. it was bare of snow, therefore one can see all the cracks and crevasses, making it relatively safe to travel on. The upper glacier which we would meet the next day was wet - i.e. snow covered all of the cracks, making it much more dangerous to travel on. We donned our crampons to deal with the slippery ice and headed up to the Bethlemi Hut, an old soviet meteo station.
The accommodation here was very basic and instead of staying in the building itself, we rented tents and rather terrible foam sleeping mats and slept outside. The logic here being that you are less disturbed at 2am by those getting ready for their summit day, when it is not your summit day. That night I doubted that logic as many, many people loudly walked past the tent at an ungodly hour.
Setting up the tent involved lots of bending down and standing back up, which because of the altitude became a series of nauseating head rushes. Laying down for the next couple of hours though, in my newly erected home, eased the pain and by the time the towering bulk of Kazbek emerged from the cloud in the afternoon sunshine, I was feeling much better. Keen to explore a bit more of our immeadiately vicinity, myself a couple others ascended up to a tiny church with sits overlooking the Bethlemi Hut and gives a great view of the expansive - though sadly recently much reduced - Gergeti Glacier. Getting back into camp we were looking forward to dinner, however we were about to be dissapointed. The “package” food options were limited and leaved much to be desired, including bread that got mouldier by the day, stale biscuits, frankfurter sausages which once served, if you blinked you would miss them and a variety of cheeses - each one saltier than the last! The purchaseable menu items were much better to be fair, with soup and dumplings available which were actually quite nice, though pricey. For example, a Mars bar from the shop worked out to be about £5!
After copious amounts of tea, we headed out the hut, back to the tents to try and rest for the day of rest (acclimatisation) ahead.
Day 3: Altitude acclimatisation and glacier travel training: 6 km, 406 m ascent
Day three on Kazbek dawned beautifully, with a stunning golden sunrise which slowly became blues of a lovely day to come. We lounged in the sun until it was time for our acclimatisation hike up to Glacier to practice glacier rescue skills. This involved how to tie into the rope, best practice when tied in and then how to arrest and ultimately how to rescue someone who had fallen into a crevasse. As we practiced, cheery summiteers and disheartened turn-backers descended past us. Before not too long, we packed up and followed them back down the mountain to the Bethlemi Hut for an early dinner and an even earlier bedtime.
Day 4: Kazbek summit day and return to Deka Hut: 25 km, 1380 m ascent
A sleepless night with a dodgy stomach resulted in a concerned start to what would be a long day. Assembling in the cold, dark Bethlemi Hut at 2am, I tried to put the pain and tiredness at the back of my mind and focus on eating and drinking. Before 03:00, we were away, stepping out in the cold but clear night. Conditions were perfect for a high altitude summit push, good visibilty, low winds, cold - but not too cold. Faithfully following our local guide Levan, we efficiently snaked our way through the hummocky and chaotic landscape of the lateral moraine of the Gergeti glacier. In no time at all we arrived and the hulking mass of ice which stretched out into the blackness like a frozen sea. Crampons were attached and partners were roped together at this point. The golden rule of glacier travel is to keep a taught rope between partners, this way a slip or fall can more easily be arrested, before potentially lethal momentum can build. Because of this, you must maintain the 10 metres of so behind your partner at all times, moving as they move, stopping when they stop, with the ultimate leader setting the pace for all those who follow. This pace was slower than I would have otherwise travelled, however it was perhaps a blessing in disguise as it was possibly the reason for the headaches not worsening as I ascended.
Before the col between Kazbek and its lofty neighbours was reached, light came into the sky and the stars were veiled by the deep blues of a cold morning. Our eastern flank was guarded by the bulk of Kazbek so we could not directly see the sunrise, however as we climbed, it let itself be known with an explosion of pink, then orange hues which splashed across the western skies and dripped down to the peaks beneath. The group paused to look back and take stock of this special moment.
We continued up on a rising traverse, the snowy ground becoming steeper as we went. Just beneath the higher col between Kazbek’s true summit (5054 m) and its subsidiary top (5015 m), the trail became zig-zagged for the final steepening. Here we caught up to many other parties and did what we could to overtake safely whilst maintaining tension on the rope system, whilst we snaked left and right. Once over the lip, we emerged onto a relatively flat area of ground where we took a breather and were roped together as one party for the final 100 metres of climbing. The steepening here was considerable and it was certainly not a place to slip or fall. As we turned on a bearing of due east for the last couple of metres, the sun broke the horizon and we were finally bathed in sunshine after many hours in the freezing shade. With the sun in our eyes and the gradient easing we were finally there, a whaleback ridge of compacted snow about 20 metres long: the summit of Mount Kazbek. We all shook hands and got as many photos and videos as we could before turning around to leave, to make space for the other parties behind us whom we had overtaken. All seven of our party achieved the summit, which our guide told us was no easy feat, with clients often having to turn back due to altitude sickness.
Back at the col we stopped for refreshments and re-roped into our original teams before heading back down the glacier. I couldn’t believe it when I saw, even here at about 4900 metres above sea level near the top of this enormous mountain, there were two dogs which chilling out in the sun waiting for mountaineers to offer them tasty treats from their rucksacks. As we descended the glacier, I thought the shallow gradient and huge wide slope would have been amazing to snowboard down, although I was aware of the hidden crevasses which were likely lurking all over the mountainside. Many hours of plodding down the slopes later, we were back at the edge of the glacier and took a well earned rest to remove crampons. As we sat, the hillside behind us was with rife with rockfall - a clear reminder of the hazards this landscape possesses. Nine hours and twenty two minutes after stepping out into the dark from the Bethlemi Hut I was back at back at camp and dying to remove my heavy plastic mountaineering boots.
The day’s work however wasn’t done, as by unanimous decision we chose to continue the descent down to the comparatively luxurious Deka Hut, and leave behind the frankly rather unpleasant Bethlemi Hut! After packing away tents and reorganising kit, we said goodbye to our duffle bags again and headed back down to the now dry glacier to crampon our way down to Deka.
Here we ate and drank the night away before falling into a deep slumber - I ended up sleeping for about 14 hours!
Day 5: Deka hut to Gergeti Trinity Church, 6 km, 102 m ascent
After probably one of the longest non-medicated continuous sleeps since being a teenager, I stumbled into the dining area for what was left of breakfast. Luckily we had several hours to kill before heading down to meet the van, so we sipped coffee and lounged around, taking in the last of the views up to Kazbek.
We made short work of the descent, not really stopping much at all until hitting tarmac at the Gergeti Trinity Church car park. Here we checked out the centuries old church before being whisked away down the mountain for unbelievable pizza and beers in Stepantsminda. What followed was travel back to the capital with much celebrating, eating, a night out, more eating and a Georgian sulphur bath experience. A final goodbye was said after a last dinner of… pizza and beer, before I headed back to Scotland, wondering what the adventure would be.
