Elbrus cable cars: the third stage is launched

Old residents for certain still remember, as the pendulum cable car "Elbrus-1" in 1969 looked. It, as before, starts at an altitude of 2350 meters - from the station "Azau", and ends at a mark of 3000 meters - here is the station "Krugozor". Today, this area is not recognized.

Not far from the old cable car (pendulum type) with two cabins (each capacity is 20 people) there is a new one - gondola, equipped with 58 removable cabins (8 cabins for each booth).

Activities in the Elbrus region

The North Caucasus beckons modern extremists no less than their much more active predecessors, who lived in the 20th century. In those days the mountains were not meant for romantic walks, but served as a kind of "scale" for measuring willpower and endurance.

Elbrus cable cars have made this area much more attractive for fans of mountain air and lovers of Selfie. Especially popular is the "Shelter of eleven" - the highest mountain hotel, located in the south-eastern part of Elbrus, at an altitude of 4130 meters above sea level. The height of Elbrus peaks (this mountain is an extinct volcano) is 5621 meters and 5642 meters.

Today, a trip along the Elbrus can be made less extreme and more colorful. With the advent of the "route" from the multi-storey cable cars, the inaccessible peaks became accessible even for unprepared travelers. Everything depends on the intentions and plans of climbers, skiers and holidaymakers.

On the cable car - on Elbrus!

The cable cars of Elbrus originate from the Azau glade, located at an altitude of 2350 meters above sea level. From here, from the Azau Glade, all the pedestrian routes leading to the top start.

Polyana Azau is not a deserted corner of nature, but rather a modern tourist center, equipped in accordance with the latest progressive developments: here, besides the rental of necessary equipment and sports equipment, there are many pharmacies, shops, hotels and cafes.

Even novices will be able to tame snowboarding or downhill skiing. The main desire! Thanks to the instruction of experienced mentors, a person who has never before been engaged in winter sports will learn how to overcome descent from the Krugozor station in just one day. This is the name of the first high-altitude point, for lifting on which the first cable car was built in these places. Elbrus (photo below) is still not visible from here. But, if you change seats in the trailer, going to the next station - "Mir", before the travelers finally get a view of Elbrus.

Hotel over the clouds

The highest point of the second stage (from Krugozor station to Mir station), launched in 1976, reaches 3470 meters. The scheme of motion in this area is similar to the previous one: next to the old, pendulum cable car, a new gondola operates. After the completion of the construction of the Big Elbrus cable car, the hotel over the clouds (so unofficially called the "Shelter of eleven") has finally become accessible to tourists of different levels of training, as well as for those who first found themselves so high in the mountains.

With the official name of the hotel - "Shelter of eleven" - there are two legends connected. According to one of them, here once frozen eleven climbers, trapped in a snowstorm. According to the second legend, the name of the hotel was given by a local resident, when he stayed overnight with his students - students of a rural school.

The second line of the "cable car" lay over the icy peaks and the non-snowing mountains of Mount Elbrus. Did the skyscrapers who erected the second line guess that in a few decades the Elbrus cable cars would lift the person even higher?

The final stop is "Gara-Bashi"

Since December 27 last year, to the services of tourists, mountaineers and just tourists who came to look at Elbrus, - a cable car, whose height reaches 3847 meters. The station "Gara-Bashi" and (so far) this "cable car" is the highest mountain in Europe. Before the highest mountain was considered a cable car with a lift on Aiguille du Midi - the western peak of Mont Blanc.

The new cableway, according to experts, favorably differs from the French, as it is suitable for all categories of skiers. The capacity of the cable car Mir-Gara-Bashi is 750 people per hour. More than one billion rubles was allocated for its construction and improvement. In the foreseeable future, the organizers of the ski resort areas of the Elbrus region plan to simultaneously receive up to 12,000 admirers of winter sports.

Shelter "Barrels"

Of course, Elbrus cable cars are not designed to deliver travelers to the very end point of travel. Before climbing to the top, tourists acclimatize, for a few days settled in one of the nine six-seat wagons, surprisingly similar to the kegs. Accustomed to the local climate, travelers will leave the shelter "Barrels" and rise to the top of the "two-headed dragon".