July 16, 2014 - 5:12 am PT We started our day at a reasonable hour with breakfast at 8 am, we had porridge, fried eggs, and of course plenty of the Starbucks coffee we brought along. :) After breakfast we finished the remainder of our packing and headed over the the gondola to hitch a ride further up the mountain to our new Base camp on Mt. Elbrus. Two gondola rides and one super long single chair lift delivered us at our new home just over 12'000'. Our new home is basically a retro fitted shipping container, they're brand new and rather comfortable. After we settled in we had a nice lunch cooked by our wonderful and cantankerous cook Albina. She's a great cook, but I think is a little over worked and runs a tight ship. After lunch we headed out to stretch our legs and continue our acclimatization process by hiking for a little over an hour and gaining well over a thousand feet. Everyone did great and we are now back at camp watching the evening clouds roll in and getting ready for dinner. RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew

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