BMG exploring in the Western Caucuses

this area to the west of Elbrus is perfect for ski touring with lots of mountains around 3000m that you can access from the road. The days were all fairly big with skins of between 1000 and 1400m as with all ski touring trips we encountered all sorts of snow conditions from 1400m of powder one day to seemingly endless crust on others. We flew via Moscow to Min Vody the main access point for the Caucuses where we were met by our Russian friend and guide Alexey Shustrov, Alexey has been waging a one man campaign to open the Caucuses fro ski touring. He has had great success bringing French and Swiss groups to the region but we were the first British ski touring party to visit the area. The problem that any potential British groups face is the FCO advice against non essential travel to the North Caucuses region; this can create problems when finding insurance. We got round this by using www.ihi.com who were very helpful and provided cover without any problem. During our time in the Caucuses we found the people to be friendly and interested in where we from and what we were doing. There was no sign of any problems and Alexey has been bringing groups of westerners to the area for years. We split our time between the area round the small village of Arhyz then travelled to Dombai the only real ski lift in the region where we explored the surrounding valleys. The Caucuses are a beautiful area with amazing potential, I though it was so good I am going back in May to try and ski Elbrus from the rarely visited North side.

Alexey has made a short video of the trip which you can viewed here.