Acclimating is key, especially when you live in a flat land like Belgium!! I'm sure you'll do fine on Kili. It's really just a walk up. A friend of mine did it and thought it was pretty easy.

MICHAELDAVIES007 wrote:Hey Wouter, so glad you made it, plus you make it sound like an easy trip. Why do you think you acclimatized so well on this tour, was it the pace and rest altitudes??

We summited with Pilgrim on 20/8/10, after approx 8 hours from the bottom of Pastukhova Rocks, around 4400m I think, also we used the snowcat. Perfect weather - zero clouds OR wind for ascent and descent, but I felt the altitude hard from the saddle and the ataxia lasted all the way to the summit and back down to 4500m.

Thanks again for all your advice prior to my trip – it was all spot on and well appreciated.

Was Vlad your guide?

"Ok friends" haha

Congrats Wouter. I didn't even realise that was you when we spoke at the hotel.

For those interested my pics are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... ac8b0d671e

and a video here i threw together quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAyQ45na-TM&hd=1




Cheers!

waXology wrote:Congrats Wouter. I didn't even realise that was you when we spoke at the hotel.

Same problem. Somehow I was convinced that Benjamin would be sitting at the same table as you. So I thought it was the other guy, and that I would catch you both when Benjamin came over. Unfortunately, when Benjamin told me who you were, you were already back in your room. Not like we didn't "meet". We did pass the ketchup quite often during dinner . Ow and I'm jealous of you guys. Weather was soo much better when you summited. Perfect blue sky! When I summited it was still OK. When I started my descent, it was a complete whiteout.

Hey Wax - no we didnt have Vlad as a guide, ours was called Sergei and he was excellent, I really never would have summited without him and I made sure I gave the positive feedback to Pilgrim. He tours to different parts of the world every season, and I will definintely join him for a private trip at some point in the future, maybe Aconcagua.

Wouter - of course I will write a trip report after Kili, it would be the least I could do. I have now booked with EWP/Zara for 18-25 September, I would be interested in your acclimitisation advice.

We also had a very organised lady with us who took loads of pictures and wrote the trip up in SP, if anyone's interested it's at the following link:

http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/6 ... lbrus.html

Michael, are you talking about Sergei Baranov? Sounds like him. He's a friend of one of my friends in Belgium. I was supposed to meet him on the mountain, but unfortunately, it didn't happen. I already heard he's a great guy, so it would be cool to know if it's him.

I was in the process of making up my acclimatisation schedule for Kili, but unfortunately, things at work have kind of gotten in the way. On the bright side, they want me to permanently move to Switzerland... . Only a lot, LOT sooner than I was expecting, so... .

WouterB wrote:Michael, are you talking about Sergei Baranov? Sounds like him. He's a friend of one of my friends in Belgium. I was supposed to meet him on the mountain, but unfortunately, it didn't happen. I already heard he's a great guy, so it would be cool to know if it's him.

I was in the process of making up my acclimatisation schedule for Kili, but unfortunately, things at work have kind of gotten in the way. On the bright side, they want me to permanently move to Switzerland... . Only a lot, LOT sooner than I was expecting, so... .

That's awesome!! Zurich? I have a friend there I visit each time I go back.

Lugano.

Wouter - yes i am talking about sergei baranov, and he really is a top fella and a very experienced climber for someone so young, he has toured at 8000m+ in the karakorum. he features in the trip report in the link in my previous post above and his contact details are as follows:

Sergei Baranov
climb777@gmail.com
www.mountainguide.ru
+79064333557

with regards to switzerland you are very lucky to be going there, i currently live in munich and the access to the mountains is awesome, on sundays i drive for an hour and hike for the day up to 2500m+ (e.g. zugspitze last weekend). but i have to leave in october to return to the uk to work and will miss this like crazy

i recently cycled to zurich and absolutely loved switzerland, and in lugano you will feel like the proverbial pig in s**t. enjoy

Below you can find the acclimatization schedule I successfully followed on Elbrus this year. I usually have quite big issues with acclimatization, and this time I had no problems at all. Since my earlier acclimatization problems manifested themselves quite consequently, I'm going to conclude that this schedule works.

I know that most people try to climb Elbrus in less days. I however wouldn't. Last year we didn't summit because we had bad weather and didn't have time to wait. This year we were lucky and we climbed it right on schedule, which gave us some more days to relax afterwards. They weren't wasted! It's cheaper to have some extra days in Azau than to return the year after - and I'm speaking out of experience.

Obviously, you should also take into account that we climbed Elbrus without a guide, with a two person team carrying all our food and equipment up ourselves while camping in a tent.




This will all be part of a larger trip report I hope to write, but I'm not too sure I'll ever find the time.

waXology wrote:

MICHAELDAVIES007 wrote:Hey Wouter, so glad you made it, plus you make it sound like an easy trip. Why do you think you acclimatized so well on this tour, was it the pace and rest altitudes??

We summited with Pilgrim on 20/8/10, after approx 8 hours from the bottom of Pastukhova Rocks, around 4400m I think, also we used the snowcat. Perfect weather - zero clouds OR wind for ascent and descent, but I felt the altitude hard from the saddle and the ataxia lasted all the way to the summit and back down to 4500m.

Thanks again for all your advice prior to my trip – it was all spot on and well appreciated.

Was Vlad your guide?

"Ok friends" haha


Congrats Wouter. I didn't even realise that was you when we spoke at the hotel.

For those interested my pics are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... ac8b0d671e

and a video here i threw together quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAyQ45na-TM&hd=1




Cheers!

Good to see the Aussie flag on the summit nearly one year to the day I held it up there in 2009 Congrats

All 2010 images are finally online:
http://picasaweb.google.com/WBertels/Elbrus2010

WouterB wrote:All 2010 images are finally online:
http://picasaweb.google.com/WBertels/Elbrus2010

That's awesome. Really good meeting you and congradulations on your success! Too bad we didn't get to climb together

Amazing that three of us from this board ended up in the same dining room - even if only for one night!!

waXology wrote:

MICHAELDAVIES007 wrote:Hey Wouter, so glad you made it, plus you make it sound like an easy trip. Why do you think you acclimatized so well on this tour, was it the pace and rest altitudes??

We summited with Pilgrim on 20/8/10, after approx 8 hours from the bottom of Pastukhova Rocks, around 4400m I think, also we used the snowcat. Perfect weather - zero clouds OR wind for ascent and descent, but I felt the altitude hard from the saddle and the ataxia lasted all the way to the summit and back down to 4500m.

Thanks again for all your advice prior to my trip – it was all spot on and well appreciated.

Was Vlad your guide?

"Ok friends" haha

Congrats Wouter. I didn't even realise that was you when we spoke at the hotel.

For those interested my pics are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... ac8b0d671e

and a video here i threw together quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAyQ45na-TM&hd=1




Cheers!

Correction: "Ok friends. And Benjamin."

Hahaha, gotta love Vlad.

Just in case anybody reading this has ANY doubts about Pilgrim, don't. They are exceptional - and at a fraction of the cost compared to competitors. For the most part, the international 7-summit type companies still use local guides on the ground anyways. We had every bit of support the others had...probably even better. When none of my equipment showed up (never made my connection from NY-Moscow), Pilgrim knew enough local operators to hook me up with enough gear to get by.

Ps, bring extra underwear in your carry-on. Turns out, some things you just can't buy in cheget/surrounding area :S

WouterB wrote:Learned a lot since last year. No problems this far, except for our luggage getting lost. But unlike Benjamin we got it back after 1 day.

hahaha, went the full 11 days without luggage. then spent 4 hours in russian customs at the moscow airport with guys yelling at me in russian to fill out russian forms which i clearly could not read. then tried to ship my equipment home (i was still travelling and didn't want to lug all the winter gear around asia in 40 degree weather) at which point fedex/ups russia told me they won't ship "used clothing". dhl wanted $600 to ship my 10kg bag. so i ended up carrying it all the way to beijing and shipping it back to canada for $80 via China post. amazing, what an adventure

benjaminwu wrote:

WouterB wrote:Learned a lot since last year. No problems this far, except for our luggage getting lost. But unlike Benjamin we got it back after 1 day.

hahaha, went the full 11 days without luggage. then spent 4 hours in russian customs at the moscow airport with guys yelling at me in russian to fill out russian forms which i clearly could not read. then tried to ship my equipment home (i was still travelling and didn't want to lug all the winter gear around asia in 40 degree weather) at which point fedex/ups russia told me they won't ship "used clothing". dhl wanted $600 to ship my 10kg bag. so i ended up carrying it all the way to beijing and shipping it back to canada for $80 via China post. amazing, what an adventure

Lol, we also signed a lot of forms we didn't understand just to get our luggage back. You apparently had it a lot worse