We booked a mini van via Pilgrim Tours and were at the cable car station in Azau before 09.30 when the lifts opened. That didn’t mean we were first in line though since the Russian queue system has a, for us, unclear organization and being first in line doesn’t necessarily mean that you are first to enter the lift. No worries though, we managed to sequence in to the first cable car of the day and left thousands of boring altitude meters beneath us in minutes instead of days if we would have walked up.

One change of lifts later and we arrived at the Mir cable car station. We had to wait one hour before the second and last chair lift that takes us to the barrel huts opens. Mattias and Marco look set and ready for a day on the mountain.

When we were waiting at the station a Ukrainian group arrived. One of the men in that group had these homemade walking poles that must weight at least one kilo each! It is impressive to see these guys going up the mountain with very simple (but functional) equipment. It also reminds you that it’s not as much the equipment as the owners’ fitness level that decides the outcome of the climb.

Once again we were first in line for the chair lift but somehow managed to be last when the chair lift finally started. This guy was bringing a gas canister up to the barrel huts and had a somewhat unsafe way of taking it with him in the chair lift. And maybe he felt very safe, because he also started to smoke a cigarett at the same time (luckely there was no gas leak).

Mattias and Maria have finally managed to get to the front of the queue and are preparing their backpacks for the lift. The bags are loaded on a separate chair while you take another one for yourself.

We pitched our tents opposite the barrel huts and had lunch next to them in the warm weather. Next stop will be Priut 11 hut, except for Marco. He volunteered to stay behind to have an eye on the tents while the others were away.

The famous barrel huts, you can probably figure out how they got this nickname. Sadly the place is very messy and littered with old rusting metal junk and garbage.

In russia they don't have snowmans, instead they called it snowmaiden. Marco get his chance to pose with this nice "maiden". Later that day the warm sun had melt it all.

Marco's next stop was with this guide. He was very friendly and talked good english. They discussed about Gumachi, another alpine climb that we had planned to do. But the guide informed about bad and instable glacier because of an stone and rock avalanche. This made the climb very dangerous and he warned us for this trip. Thank you, our friend, good information is always welcome. Oh, by the way, the guide worked for Pilgrim Tours.

Here we have a good view of the old Ice Camp that we visited yesterday.

The ones that decided to take a walk up to the Priut 11 hut in the afternoon had very nice weather. The weather was perfect and the skies was clear of any coulds. Actually, this was the best weather during our visit... but we did'nt know anything about that for now.

After about one hour we could see the Priut 11 hut above us and just had a final steeper section before we reached it.

We walked over to the rock ridge to the east of the hut to have a look at the old airplane wreck. It has been turned into a hut that is used by the mountain rescue service that is located there.

Another view of the summit, it seems very close now and it is easy to underestimate the distance and altitude difference.

We walked around to see if we could find some good places to pitch the tents for when we move up here later. There are plenty of them around but even here there the place is covered with garbage (left by other climbers) and old metal junk that is sticking out of the snow.

The ridge above the hut is a popular place for pitching tents and it also gives easy access to the little stream of fresh glacier melt water that is located to the right in this photo.

The old Priut 11 burned down a few years ago and this is the ruins from that tragedy. Read more here. Mattias and Maria are looking at the numerous memorial plaques that are fixed to the rock face above the ruin. It makes a chilling reminder of the ever present danger of venturing up these altitudes and potentially dangerous terrain. To see some memorial plaques, click here.

The way down was easy and we arrived down to the tents 45 minutes later.

We relaxed in the tent for a while before we cooked dinner.

Mattias and Maria are watching the clouds form beneath us to eventually create a complete blanket over the valley bellow.

These last minutes of the day bring a fantastic display of vivid colors and enhance the already beautiful scenery. At the picture, in the left lower corner, we can see the Mir cabin station.

The surrounding mountains look just amazing in the red evening sunlight! The picture shows Ushba, it's a special mountain with the north (4694 m) and south (4710 m) summit.

The grand finale of this beautiful display is a fantastic sunset.

15 minutes later and it is almost pitch-black and we retreat to our tests for a good nights sleep.