Myself and Toni took part in an expedition to Mt. Elbrus, Caucasus, Russia in April in a group of 5. The plan was to do some serious offpiste skiing / boarding. Mt. Elbrus with its height (the western summit) of 5642m is the heighest mountain in the geographical Europe.

- Matti

10.3.2004 - the travel arrangements are afoot!
We had a quick gettogether and placed our visa applications at the Russian consulate.

21.4.2004 - the trip is done!
The journey was most excellent! The weather was sunny and warm and we got 3 straight days of powder skiing. Life couldn't be better.. See pictures and stories below.

I would like to thank:

• the participants: Jukka, Heikki, Samu, Toni, for making the trip the Most Excellent Adventure (tm) it was
• our hosts/guides Liza, Albert and Sergey from go-elbrus.com
• the Finnish guys there before us for tips and hints and also for recommending Liza in the first place
• the weathergods
• my skiing equipment for not failing although I pushed them
• Omar
• The person who stole King Artturi's gaming machine
• The vodka industry of Russia
• the Good Cat for not fidgeting
• the Drop Dog for doing drops and looking funny
• series of women for taking their clothes off on Elbrus in front of us

Here is a video we shot on Elbrus. It was put together by Toni.

- Matti

Our route of travel; Helsinki-Moscow by train, Moscow-Nalchik by plane, Nalchik-Terskol (Elbrus) by bus. One-way trip took (including waiting around in Moscow) around 32 hours.

Story + pictures

Journey there
1st day & 2nd day
3rd day & 4th day
5th day & 6th day
7th day
8th day
Journey back home

other stuff

Toni's pictures
Jukka's pictures
The page we used for planning
elbrus.org