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IMG Elbrus Climb Itinerary
| Day | Itinerary |
| Depart the United States. | |
| Arrive in Frankfurt and connect with our flight to St. Petersburg. We'll be met at the airport and transfer to our hotel for the night. | |
| Sight seeing in St. Petersburg with English speaking tour guide. We will visit the Fortress of Peter and Paul, St. Isaacs Cathedral and take a boat ride through the canals in the afternoon. A second night spent at the hotel there. | |
| Fly from St. Petersburg to Mineralnye Vody and then transfer by bus to our hotel in the town of Terskol. | |
| Acclimatization hike. Night in Terskol. | |
| Training day at a nearby glacier. Technique review with emphasis on the French technique of cramponing. Night in Terskol. | |
| Begin our Elbrus climb. We will take the tram and ski lift to the Barrels Hut on Elbrus. Altitude is approx. 12,500 ft. From there, we hike about 1½ hours to our private hut at the site of the old Pruitt which burned many years ago. Altitude here is approx. 13,500 ft. | |
| This is an acclimatization day with a 2½ hour hike to a major rock landmark above our hut. A second night will be spent at the hut. | |
| Attempt Elbrus. Early morning start with almost 5,000 vertical feet of cramponing. Return to hut for the night. | |
| Return to the valley and our hotel in Terskol. | |
| Probable ice climbing day. We can also use this as a weather contingency day for Elbrus, if needed. | |
| Sight seeing day in the Baksan Valley. This day is also available as a weather contingency day, if needed. | |
| We will drive back to Mineralnye Vody and then fly to Moscow. An English speaking guide will join us during our sightseeing in Moscow that day. We'll spend our final night at a hotel there. | |
| We'll visit Red Square and the Kremlin during the day and then go to the airport for our flight to Frankfurt. Most folks will have a forced overnight in Frankfurt. | |
| Transfer back to the airport for flights home. |
As always, Phil had the logistics worked out to perfection, got us up and down the mountain in one piece, and took the time to pass on his lifetime of climbing and travel knowledge along the way. Absorbing the ups and downs of a two-week adventure like this must be a real pain, but Phil did so without missing a beat, allowing the rest of us to sit back and enjoy ourselves, which I believe we all did. I can't imagine the trip being planned out any better...
