The West Summit, the highest point of this twin-summited, massive, glaciated volcanic dome, is also the highest point in Europe. Asia and the border of Russia with Georgia lies along the main ridge of the Caucasus about 10km south of the summit. The East Summit, 5621m, lies about 1500m to the east and is separated from West Summit by The Saddle, 5416m, an icy and windswept broad gap. The remains of the Saddle Hut are just visible several hundred metres south of the gap itself and are testament to grand plans that had been made to develop the route to the summit.
The Priut of the Eleven, a grand and futuristic metal clad, three storey building, located at 4120m, now also is just a distant memory, only its charred ruins can be seen a few metres from the newly constructed Diesel Hut. This itself was built on the ruins of the fuel store once used to power the generators for the Priut 11. The much grander plan to build a cable car station at the site of the Priut never got off the ground and nobody remembers when the radiators that formed part of the steps up to the Priut where ever used as they were intended.
Over 70 glaciers flow down from the icy dome of Elbrus whose glaciated area covers about 130 square kilometres. Neither summit is particularly difficult and ascents could be attempted from a variety of directions but few ever venture off the standard route up the main summit which utilises the cable way and chairlift system leading to the Garabashi Barrels (huts located at 3800m) from where it is a short walk up to the Diesel Hut. Access difficulties, bad weather and extensive crevassed areas make other routes very serious propositions. In bad weather conditions the wind chill effect can take temperatures down to -50°C. It is worth bearing in mind that every year many people die on the mountain, some say that if you are successful on Elbrus you could well be able to tackle Everest.
The ancients knew the mountain as Strobilus and believed that Prometheus was chained here. The lower of the two summits was first ascended in 1868 by Douglas Freshfield, A. W. Moore, and C. C. Tucker, and the higher (by about 40 m) in 1874 by a British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove. During the early years of the Soviet Union, mountaineering became a popular sport of the masses, and there was tremendous traffic on the mountain. In the winter of 1936, a very large group of inexperienced Komsomol members attempted the mountain, and ended up suffering many fatalities when they slipped on the ice and fell to their deaths. The Germans briefly occupied the mountain during World War II with 10,000 mountaineer soldiers; a possibly apocryphal story tells of a Soviet pilot being given a medal for bombing the main mountaineering hut, Pruit 11, while it was occupied. He was then later nominated for a medal for not hitting the hut, but instead the fuel supply, leaving the hut standing for future generations.
The Soviet Union encouraged ascents of Elbrus, and in 1956 it was climbed en masse by 400 mountaineers to mark the 400th anniversary of the annexation of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in which Elbrus was located.
From 1959 through 1976, a cable car system was built in stages which can take visitors as high as 3,800 meters. There are a wide variety of routes up the mountain, but the normal route, which is free of crevasses, continues more or less straight up the slope from the end of the cable car system. During the summer, it is not uncommon for 100 people to be attempting the summit via this route each day. The climb is not technically difficult, but it is physically arduous because of the elevations and the frequent strong winds.
The Caucasus Mountains are the result of a tectonic plate collision between the Arabian plate moving northward with respect to the Eurasian plate. They form a continuation of the Himalaya, which are being pressed upwards by a similar collison zone with the Eurasian and Indian plates. The entire region is regularly subjected to strong earthquakes from this activity, especially as the fault structure is complex with the Anatolia/Turkey and Iranian Blocks flowing sidewise, which prevents subduction of the advancing plate edge and hence the lack of volcanoes (though some minor dome structures, such as Elbrus' peaks, do exist).
Mount Elbrus should not be confused with the Alborz (also called Elburz) mountains in Iran.
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