SKI MOUNTAINEERING

Athletes have been competing in ski mountaineering races since the beginning of the Red Fox Elbrus Race in 2008. Every year leading and well-known ski-mountaineers from all over the world meet and compete during the event, looking for new challenges.

HISTORY

Within the Red Fox Elbrus Race, athletes participating in the Ski-mountaineering Championship of Russia or the Russian Cup in Ski-Mountaineering, have received credit points thanks to which they have been awarded "Master of Sports", an honor title invented in Soviet times, which is given to outstanding sports athletes until now.

The perfect organization of our different ski-mountaineering contests was noted by Alexandre Pellicier (France), technical director of the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF), world champion in ski-mountaineering 2008 and organizer of one of the steps of the team race within Red Fox Elbrus Race 2014.

For the 10th Anniversary, a Ski Mountaineering Monster Race was the logical new addition.

Within the Festival there was an absolutely new kind of ski-mountaineering competition - exclusive expedition team race., the Elbrus Ski Monsters Expedition Race! So far, there has been no ski-mountaineering competition right up to the summit of Mt. Elbrus, only athletes of the SkyMarathon® - Mt. Elbrus or Skyrace® - Mt. Elbrus have competed that high.

ELBRUS SKI MONSTERS EXPEDITION RACE

In 2018 for the first time during the 10-year old history of the Festival, there was an exclusive expedition team race, the Elbrus Ski Monsters Expedition Race, leading the teams to the top of Europe - the summit of Mt. Elbrus (5642 m)!

THE ROUTE

The route followed places of historical and geographical interest on Mt. Elbrus.

Total distance - 42,98 km
Total vertical ascent - 4 991 m
Expected leaders' time - 8 h

The race started at the bottom of Elbrus cable car in Azau at an altitude of 2350 m, led over the glaciers of Small and Great Azau and Garabashi, passed the "Maiden's Hair Waterfall", the observatory and the former climbers' base "105th Piquet", followed glaciers to Pastukhov Rocks and to the West summit of Mt. Elbrus. One part of the route led along the Main Caucasian Ridge from Khotyu-Tau pass to the "Echo-of- the-War" pass. There were technical difficulties on the route, which required repelling techniques for descent and ascent on fixed ropes.

The finish of the competition was at "Mir"-station at 3450 m.

Сontrol time at check point on the Saddle (5350 m) - 12:00.
Сontrol time at check point on the Mt. Elbrus West Summit (5642 m) - 14:00.

In 2019 the Elbrus Ski Monsters Expedition Race was included in the official calendar of the International Ski Mountaineering Federation as one of the races of the ISMF European Series.

Together with the participants, the race was also attended by the president and general manager of the International Ski Mountaineering Federation Armando Mariotta and Roberto Cavallo. They expressed their gratitude to the organizers for the professional and safe organization of the race.

RECORDS

Year / Discipline	Elbrus Ski Monsters Expedition Race
	Men	Women
2018	8:19:23 (top, CP11) Ruslan Kulmuhametov (Россия, Republic of Bashkortostan) and Ivan Marchenkov (Russia, Moscow Region), the National Guard of Russian team #1 High-speed Race "Classic" (from "Barrels")	10:09:58 (top, CP11) Veronika Mayerhofer and Johanna Erhart (Austria) High-speed Race "Sport" (from Azau Glade)
2019	6:28:49 Evgeny Markov and Vasily Khrychev (Russia)	9:06:47 Yuliya Krasnova and Natal'ya Rudenko (Russia)