Getting up close and personal with the Russians soon.

Tomorrow I start my hike towards the top of Mt. Kazbek. The original plan was to hike to a alpine camp, then day 2 to the old meterological station, then a series of acclimatization day + 2 summit attempts. However, we had to move our dates at the last minute and got tagged into a group of 3 Norweigans. While not exactly the plan, I'm ok with it.

We had a meeting with the guide and 2 of the 3 Norweigans this afternoon. On the side of "can I keep up" it seems a little positive: the 2 guys who showed were 40+ and one guy had a solid beer gut going on. At the end of the meeting we chatted a bit and found out the highest these guys had been was around 3300m. (10,800 ft.)

So when the guide recommended we push straight for the meterlogical station (3680m, 12,100 ft) I was a little surprised that these Norwegians were all about it. Starting from the Gergeti Chapel (2400m), that's a 1280m (4200 ft) 7-9 hour first day with full packs. Granted without the campsite we can dump a few pounds of tent, and it's one less day we'll be on the mountain so that's a little lighter on the weight too. Plus we continue to have bouts of heavy rain -- not enough to rain out a whole day, but enough to make your trip really miserable. (Rain just started pounding the house right now. Its raining so hard it cut the satellite TV feed, but it'll probably be over in 45 minutes.) So, not tenting may help avoid the misery of climbing to 12000 ft in wet boots and gear. But still... that's a long hard first day.

Well, the pack is set and it comes in at 43 lbs, which ain't too shabby considering all the gear required for glacier travel. I'm personally prepared for the potential of a bivy if we're not making time goals or if someone gets a case of AMS, but I'm not sure how much these other guys are.

Total team: 3 guides, 3 Norweigans, 2 Americans. That's 2 rope teams for summit bids which should increase odds of success if we make it through day 1. Plus it means we can split the group in half if part of the team needs to retreat off the mountain.

Personally, I think for the experience of some of these guys that the first day is too aggressive. However, being 10-20 years their junior it seems odd to be the one holding them back. So I agreed to the plan. We shall see.