Climbing Mount Achishkho 2.0

By overcoming our own laziness and the temptations of a cozy summer resort, my wife and I obtained permits to visit the national park and climb Mount Achishkho in Krasnaya Polyana, and headed into the mountains.

This wonderful route, with my favorite number 13, starts from the highest point of Krasnaya Polyana. Back in 2016, a friend and I were preparing for a climb of Elbrus (successfully, by the way), and carrying fully loaded 25-kilogram backpacks with tents and other hiking gear, we climbed the mountain through Bear Gate, spent the night in the clouds, and returned safely by the long route.

This time my beautiful companion was my wife Masha, who turned out to be physically more resilient and better prepared than I currently am. It was hard for me. My backpack weighed about 13 kilograms, and my knee—which had been operated on three months earlier—kept reminding me of itself. In short, we made our way slowly to Mirror Lake, and decided not to continue to the waterfalls because our hike had already taken longer than expected.

Over the years the route has changed a lot in the direction of a civilized tourist destination: real footbridges have appeared, informational signs (“protect the forest,” “bears are the masters of the forest,” and so on), and by the lake they have equipped a camping area with outhouse-style toilets, an electric fence against bears, and wooden viewing platforms. The route is marked. In one sense that is good, but I love wild places. Nine years ago we gloriously lost the path and felt a huge range of emotions when we found ourselves on a steep slope where we could only climb upward, with no way sideways or down. It was dangerous, reckless, but truly wild. I love that kind of thing. And at night something large sniffed around our tent, but did not touch us. Now everything is civilized.

Back then, nine years ago, during the two days up and down we encountered only one group of girls who were going to do yoga in the clearing with the moon stone. This time, every five minutes someone was coming toward us, or we were overtaking someone, or someone was overtaking us. At the top near the lake there was a camp with a dozen tents. Route 13 is comfortable, quite steep in places, very picturesque, and runs through the forest. At the very top it crosses several meadows covered with flowers. There are a lot of insects—especially biting midges, whose bites then take weeks to heal and itch terribly.

The descent was harder. We decided to take the same route back, though in hindsight we should have taken the longer, gentler one. My out-of-shape legs, already bitten up by midges, were buzzing unbelievably. It is nice that I now have a like-minded companion who enjoyed this kind of vacation 100 percent.