Elbrus BTS
In April 2019, we embarked on an adventure to the Elbrus region of Russia. We had 14 days to make a summit attempt on Mount Elbrus, shoot some content for local mountain guiding company and create our own short documentary to run on the festival circuit.
On our first day, we met our guide and some of the locals we would soon get to know very well. One of the locals suggested taking us on a “light” sunrise ski tour to warm up our legs and get a fun first glance at the region. Needless to say what he thought was a “light” ski tour was not what we thought was a light ski tour… 8 hours later, with no food or water on us and after 2,000 vert we were destroyed!
In many ways this first day set the tone for what was to be an epic but tough 14 days.
We planned out the two weeks into 2-3 day segments with rest days between to refuel and reset ourselves.
Within this period we would look for our window to summit Elbrus, otherwise we would ski tour across the region to the mountains and experience the culture the region has to offer.
When you are out climbing up some steep slopes, the Elbrus region could easily pass for the Alps. Just as epic, vast and beautiful. However, once you come down into the villages thats when you notice how culturally different it is. Farm lands and muddy fields are what you meet off the trails and some of the most welcoming hospitable and friendly people on this planet.
The most challenging element of this shoot was the high winds and the cold. Think 100km winds per hour and -40 degrees celcius and trying to operate cameras and drones! Our days in the mountains all followed more or less the same structure, rise and be ready to shoot pre-dawn, tour roughly 1,500 metres vert during the day and be prepped and ready to shoot again for sunset.
Each night we would sleep in what were called mountain huts. Really these were just ice cold and air tight shipping containers at 4,000 metres. Every night we would weigh up opening the window for some desperately needed fresh air in exchange for losing the little heat we had accumulated. The double edged sword!
Aside from the hospitable local people we met a few friendly creatures… one fox that took a shinning to us, followed us on one of our 3 day outings. He even decided to make himself super familiar by pissing in one of our hats. Milo had to make the decision between getting a sun roasted head or smelling like fox piss for the next three days. He chose the fox piss!
It really was an epic trip, on our last night we decided to splash out and drive to the nearest town where we feasted like kings and queens for the first time on something other than salami and bread (which seems to be the main diet of the Elbrus mountain folk)!
If you ever get the chance we would seriously recommend exploring that region, it has so much to offer.
You can view the final project here