5 Days in Elbrus

The valley road ends here, at the foot of Elbrus, in a flat meadow called a polyana (glade). The lower gondola station, the ticket office, a few hotels and cafes crowd around the car park, and above them the mountain can vanish into cloud.

Buy the walking ticket here if you are not skiing: one ride up and one ride down on the gondolas, listed at 2,900 RUB for adults. A 2026 price list from a travel site shows national park entry at about 200 RUB, but whether and where it is collected is unclear, so ask at the window and keep your ticket. Go early on a clear morning. Cloud builds from late morning, and the view from the top is the point.

The first gondola, 1,740 meters long, takes you up to Krugozor, the old lookout at around 3,000 meters. The Azau valley and the Baksan gorge fall away behind you.

Step off for a few minutes. Krugozor is also where the floodlit evening run to Azau starts, and the top of the blue run you ski on day two. Do not rush to the next gondola: going from 2,350 to 3,000 meters in a quarter of an hour is plenty for the first day.

The second gondola, 1,800 meters long, brings you to Mir at 3,500 meters. There is a viewing platform by a memorial to the heroes of the Second World War, and the glaciers of Elbrus sit right above you.

This is the best place for a first pause. If the head feels light or the walk to the memorial is tiring, stay here, drink water and look at the glaciers. Nobody wins a medal for going higher on day one.

The third gondola, 1,686 meters long, reaches Garabashi, the highest cable car station in Russia, listed in the national book of records. At 3,847 meters the air holds about two thirds of the oxygen it does at sea level, so slow down. You will notice stairs.

The point is the view: the saddle between the twin summits of Elbrus, the glaciers, the rows of the barrels where climbers sleep, and on a clear day the whole western Caucasus. There is a post box at the top, billed by the resort as the highest in Russia, if you want a card to arrive with an unusual stamp. Stay for 30 to 45 minutes, then head down. If a headache, nausea or dizziness starts, go down at once. The only cure for altitude sickness is lower air.

Back on the glade, eat the thing this valley is known for: khychin, a very thin round flatbread stuffed with cheese and herbs, potato or meat, then browned in a dry pan. It belongs to the Karachay-Balkar cooking of this valley and is one of the oldest dishes in the Caucasus, with a ritual role in weddings and festivals.

Balkar khychin is rolled thinner than the Karachay version, with only water, flour and salt in the dough, and puffs up in the pan like a ball. Cafes on the glade serve it with ayran, a salty sour-milk drink, or with hot tea. It is cheap, filling and exactly right after a morning at altitude.

Terskol is a small mountain village, built after 1944 to serve visitors on the site of a deported Balkar hamlet, and its name means crooked gorge in Karachay-Balkar. The Balkars were allowed back in 1957, and today most people living here work in the resort business.

Dinner is shashlik: lamb on skewers over coals, the best-known dish of Karachay-Balkar cooking. Ask for jalbaur too, liver wrapped in caul fat. Cafes and hotel restaurants are the choice, and it is a quiet village at night. Eat early, drink water, sleep well. The next day starts at the lifts.

Start low. Run 1B, listed as blue, is 2,459 meters long with a drop of 650 meters from 3,000 down to the 2,350 meters of Azau. Run 1C beside it is red, 2,117 meters long with the same drop. There is also a short green, 1A, 130 meters long at the bottom.

Both long runs end at the valley floor, and snowmaking reaches down to Azau. A blue run at 3,000 meters is still a run at altitude, so your legs tire earlier than at home. Do two laps, find your rhythm and then go up. Children can learn on Saby Park, the resort's 300-meter kids' slope.

From Mir at 3,500 meters four runs fall toward 3,000: 2A and 2D are blue, 2B and 2C are red, between 903 and 2,081 meters long. The blues are the easy way to spend a morning above the clouds; the reds are wide, fast and the heart of the mountain.

Last winter the resort opened a new east zone at 3,300 to 3,500 meters with two modern lifts and six runs totalling 5.2 km. With it the resort had 23 km of runs to offer. Check which of these lifts run on the day, because weather closed the lifts often last winter.

OpenStreetMap lists a cafe at Mir and another near Garabashi, and menus change with the season, so ask what is on. If there is shorpa, order it: the lamb broth of the Karachay-Balkar table, made with onion, potato and celery root. It is the right food for the altitude and the cold.

Cards from outside Russia will not work here, so carry cash. Eat quickly if the sun is out. The best snow is before one o'clock, and the afternoon runs are softer and busier.

The top of the mountain at 3,847 meters has the steepest skiing. Run 3D is the only black on the resort's list, 1,367 meters long with a drop of 380 meters. Runs 3A, 3B and 3C are red, from 330 to 1,869 meters, and run 4A, a 62-meter green, is a short link at the very top.

These runs are exposed, cold and windy, and the snow changes by the hour. Ski in a group and stop earlier than you think. If your legs shake or your head aches, take the gondola down and come back tomorrow.

A hundred meters from the top station stand the Barrels, a camp of insulated six-bed cabins where climbers sleep before the summit, and the starting point of the normal southern route. Above them the route climbs past the Diesel hut at 4,157 meters and the Pastukhov Rocks, named after Andrei Pastukhov, the topographer who climbed both summits in 1890 and 1896.

The rocks can be reached by snowmobile, and a snowcat goes higher toward the climbers' base camp. That is freeride territory for confident skiers with a guide, because there are crevasses off the marked route. Look, take photos, and do not wander away from the line.

Last winter the resort lit the 2.4-km run from Krugozor to Azau with 54 light masts, and almost 17,000 skiers tried it. It is the one way to see Elbrus catch the last colors at the top while you ski the lower slope in artificial light.

Opening hours and which days it runs depend on the season and the snow, and the site gives no schedule, so ask at the ticket office on day one. Evening skiing is included in some seasonal passes. The slope is wide and easy to read; save your last laps for it.

Cheget glade lies at about 2,100 meters, in the forest, and hotels, rental points, cafes and the lower chairlift station sit around it. The glade is inside the Prielbrusye National Park, and a 2026 price list from a travel site shows an entry fee of about 200 RUB. Whether it is collected at the lift is unconfirmed, so ask at the cash desk and keep any receipt.

This is where Russian chairlift history began: the first chairlifts in the country started running on Cheget in 1963, and all three of today's chairlifts date from the 1960s. Unlike Azau, everything here is open air, so the chairs are cold when the wind picks up in the forest.

The system has two stages. The first chair, Parnaya (1969, two-seat) or Cheget-1 (1963, single-seat), takes about 17 minutes from 2,100 to 2,750 meters. The second, Cheget-2 (1966, single-seat), takes another 13 minutes to the top station at around 3,000 meters. A short drag lift above is privately owned, is not covered by the main ticket and serves a beginners' run.

The chairs are open and slow, and the forest section is windy. Put on every layer you have. That slow ride is part of the experience.

From the top station at about 3,000 meters you look across the valley at Elbrus, 5,642 meters at its western summit, and at the glaciers and peaks of the Central Caucasus. Cheget's own summit, Donguz-Orunbashi, is 3,769 meters.

Go on a clear morning and take warm clothes, because it is cold and windy at the top. Don't leave the ride down for the last hour of lift hours. If cloud covers Elbrus, wait a while before you give up.

Cheget is known for steep slopes that suit experienced skiers and riders. Beginners should not try the hard runs without an instructor, because some stretches need good technique. The area has only a few lifts, so the day is a handful of long laps.

Think of it as the rougher, older cousin of the Elbrus pistes. A day ticket here is also a good swap when the Elbrus cable cars close for wind. Check the status of the upper chairs at the cash desk before you buy.

Cafes at the glade and at the lower lift station sell khychin, hot pies (pirozhki) and herbal tea, the classic quick warm-up after a ski day. A pirozhok is a small baked or fried pie with a filling of meat, cabbage or potato, and here it stands next to the local flatbread.

Pick whichever cafe is busiest at three o'clock; there are several, and none is a landmark. Order herbal tea if you want the mountain version, and ayran if you want the local one.

Narzan Glade is where carbonated mineral water comes out of the ground in small streams and stains the banks rust-red. The resort calls it rivers of narzan with rusty banks. The springs differ in taste and mineral content, so try several.

Walk from Cheget along eco-trail no. 5. The round trip is about 2 km, tasting is free, and there are several cafes and a souvenir market on the glade. A regional reference counts nine main springs in the Prielbrusye area, giving around five million liters a day between them.

Terskol lies at the upper end of the Baksan gorge, 37 km from the district town of Tyrnyauz. Snow lies in the valley from October to May, and in spring a hot dry mountain wind called a foehn can blow down the valley at up to 25-30 meters per second.

Walk the lanes to the mosque, where the Devichi Kosy trail starts, and past the rescue service and avalanche warning center in the middle of the village, the working heart of a place that exists for visitors. Rows of anti-avalanche pyramids stand on the slopes above. The village is small and plain, and its draw is the mountain behind it.

Devichi kosy means maidens' braids, and the waterfall hangs on the south slope of Terskol Peak at about 2,800 meters, fed by the melting Garabashi glacier. The resort lists the hike as a summer route: 10.2 km out and back, 650 meters of climbing, four to five hours.

The trail starts by the mosque in Terskol. A dirt road leaves the asphalt toward the peak, and after ten minutes it forks: the right-hand path goes into the Terskol gorge and to the Terskol waterfall, the left-hand one to Devichi Kosy. Part of it runs through conifer forest, part across open rock. Take proper boots, a hat, sunscreen, a snack and water. In winter, snow and ice make this a route for the experienced, so ask locally.

The observatory was founded in 1980 at 3,150 meters on Terskol Peak. Its Zeiss-2000 telescope was built in Germany in 1988, shipped in pieces to Novorossiysk and hauled up the mountain with tank tractors, and installation was finished only in 1994. First light came in 1996 with comet Hale-Bopp.

The resort lists guided tours as a summer activity and warns that the schedule changes, with a gap in tours from 23 June to 15 July on its page. Check the observatory's own site and your hotel before you plan around it. The view from the peak of the Caucasus ridge, Ushba and the Terskol glacier is part of the draw.

Tegenekli is about 9 km down the valley from Terskol, and its museum of mountaineering and hunting carries the name of V. Vysotsky. The resort lists it among the sights of Prielbrusye.

Opening hours are not published where we could check them, so call ahead or ask your hotel. If it is shut, the valley road itself is the sight: the river and the mountain walls. Terskol itself has a district hospital and a trauma point, which is worth knowing in case of an emergency.

Make tonight a proper meal of the local table. Start with shorpa, a lamb broth with onion, potato and celery root, or the dried-meat version. Follow with jalbaur, skewered liver in caul fat, and a plate of sausage (sohta, a homemade liver sausage) if the kitchen has it.

Finish with kuuut jummak, a sweet like halva, or baklava, which the Karachay-Balkar table also makes. Drink ayran, or boza if it is on offer, with the heavy food. Ask the staff what is fresh today, and leave room for tea.

The first of the Chegem waterfalls is about 2 km south of Nizhny Chegem and 200 meters off the road. Adai-Su, also called Devichya kosa (the maiden's braid), falls about 30 meters down a stone chute like a giant gutter, and it is the strongest of the group.

Park, walk the short path and take photos from below. It is an easy first stop that makes a good warm-up for the narrower gorge further south.

South of the village of Khushto-Syrt the gorge narrows into the Su-Auzu (water from the throat), only 25 meters wide at the tightest point. The big falls are here. The Sakal-Tup fall is a chute like the first one, with much less water. About half a kilometer on, the main Chegem fall on the Kayarty stream spreads into a whole group of falls: some water drops 50 to 60 meters in small cascades, some seeps out of cracks high in the wall, and the spray makes rainbows in the sun.

The falls are a protected natural monument and a favorite excursion for visitors from the Caucasian Mineral Waters. Wear shoes with grip, because spray wets the paths.

A small hotel and a few cafes stand by the falls. Expect simple Karachay-Balkar food: shashlik, khychin, soup, tea. You will not find anything fancy, but you are in a gorge with a waterfall.

Order khychin with cheese and herbs, the surest plate, or shashlik if you are hungry. Pay in cash. Opening depends on the season, so keep a snack in the car.

Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, is a calm, green Soviet-era spa city of parks and orchards, and more a base than a sight. A flat evening walk is welcome after the mountains.

Walk through Atazhukinsky Garden, part of the Central Park of Culture and Recreation, with its artificial lakes, then eat shashlik or ask for the Kabardian lyagur and pasta from the food list. In winter paths can be icy, so keep the walk short. Lenin Prospect is the main street. Sleep in town and leave for the airport in the morning.