Caucasus 12-23 August 2021
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Day 6. Tyrolean traverse to cross river Mkyara.
We planned to do a half-day trip on the glaciers in the afternoon but crossing river Mkyara took longer than expected and the trip was shortened.
The blue and red lines show our main track and the short circular trip. Shift-click on the track link will open it in nakarte.me.
Sunrise. This was the first day with wall-to-wall sunshine in the morning.
The whole valley is now sunlit.
A curious bull wanted to join us for breakfast.
Victor is quite experienced in dealing with farm animals: a raised stick helped to chase the bull away.
There were many thyme flowers in this valley. Someof our team members collected it to take home.
Trading sweets...
A group of horses gallopped by on the other side of the valley...
... they were followed by a shepherd.
We were going further and further away from Mount Elbrus.
A deep canyon.
Mount Elbrus stopped hiding in the clouds for the first time. This is its eastern summit and the crater.
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Our team: Maria. |
Anna. |
Igor.
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Olya, Sonya and Victor. |
Olya, Lyosha and Lena. |
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Lena, Sonya and Misha. |
Masha. |
Lena.
We turned into a side valley and traversed the slope without a path.
This was hard work for the little ones.
A rest break at last.
This is river Mkyara. We need to cross it.
The water level in the river was fairly high. The adults could have crossed on foot but carrying children across would have been too dangerous. We decided to use Tyrolean traverse to get to the other side.
Everybody made a contribution.
Tyrolean traverse.
It took us a couple of hours to cross the river, so we stopped for lunch straight after getting to the other side.
Everybody flocked to this boulder to get photographed. We set up camp here.
We went for a short circular walk, as it was getting late. The path crossed a scree and then followed a stream.
We did not have time to get to the Voruta pass, and had to turn back in order to return before darkness. This is Mukal glacier.
A group of wild goates easily crossed the river a minute ago. We were watching them with envy.
Our camp got surrounded by the evening clouds. Tomorrow, we will get up early to cross the river while the water level is not too high.
