We left camp at 4am. It was a long and hard slog to the summit. Much harder than any of us thought. I had a pounding headache most of the way up. The going was very slow. Pierre has a bad chest infection and took strain. The film crew are amazing! They’re so strong and always running up and down to get the shot. Peter stayed at camp.

We reached the summit around 11am. Although it was a perfect summit day, it certainly wasn’t a day for flying. There was no wind and with the small summit and our tandem, it wasn’t ideal. We tried to run fast down the summit to pick up enough speed to start flying, but running fast at altitude isn’t really possible. Twice we crashed in soft snow and had to walk back up again. The 3rd time there was a hint of a breeze and we gunned it. Everything happened so fast but eventually we were airborne! It was wild! Pierre says it was by far the scariest takeoff he’d ever done (both single or tandem). We landed safely. It took me quite a while to find myself again. Now after a cup of tea I can recall some feelings and I can only say that, apart from many crazy experiences, this totally blew my mind. Pierre was absolutely in control and I have no doubt that he’ll accomplish his dream. Kyle and Guy unfortunately have to walk down… We’ll have tea ready for them.

Marianne

We started on Elbrus today. Well, that’s if taking the ski lift is considered a start. We’ve managed with a bit of difficulty to get our 200kg bags up to the first base camp where the barrels are (barrels being round tin containers that you can sleep in for a price).

We walked our gear another 300m further up to get away from the circus.That was quite hard work, cause on the ski lift we gained 2000m in altitude so walking another 300m certainly wasn’t easy. Pierre’s resting heart rate was 92 instead of his usual 53 back in Joburg. We pitched some tents and had lunch in horrible weather – wet snow (sleet) and what’s worse is that it seems to be the forecast for the next week. So we’re in for a wet and cold time. Certainly an unpredictable flight too.

We then walked 2000m back to our hotel, completely wet. Tomorrow is our first real hard walk day. We’ll walk the 2000m back up to our camp to spend our first night on the mountain. We’ll have lite bags but a hellava lot of climbing to do.Then, if all goes well, we’ll move our camp higher the next day, and go back to base camp to spend the night.

The following night we’ll spend the night at high camp. And if we’re lucky we can go for the summit the day after. Earliest we’ll summit and fly is on Monday. But like I say, we don’t have great weather so may have to wait it out a bit.

We’ll keep u updated. Check out our latest pix and video gallery!

Marianne

It’s Sunday morning.  We leave tonight.  I’m not sure how, but somehow we still have to pack, put sponsor stickers on gliders, test satellite modem, go shopping, attach remote cameras to glider and test them, update my ipod, find my missing walking stick…   I’m sure I’ve left out a few.  Instead of letting stress get to me I thought updating our blog will distract me a bit.  It’s sort of helping.

Anyway, I figure, if I keep a list and tick things off as I do them, we should be fine.   Problem is, the list keeps growing.  It’s not like we left everything for the last day – every minute of the last month has been packed with getting stuff sorted.  On top of that my general workload felt like it’s doubled during the world cup so I couldn’t run around during work hours to sort expeditions stuff like I normally would.

We have a long flight to Amsterdam where we connect to Moscow, so between now and then, I’ll remember what I’ve left behind and send an update.

Marianne