I’ve been chatting with my wife about my goals and plans for the coming year. One is to finally finish up Elbrus, Race or not. In discussing my plans in regards to finishing Elbrus, we thought that perhaps I should try to get in a once-a-month climb of Quandary, regardless of weather. Elbrus has atrocious weather you know. Cold and windy is the norm most summit days it seems. It’s only the non-summit days that you get beautiful blue skies.

Since I was able to acclimatize so well for Orizaba in 2013, in spite of living here in Utah at the time, we considered that I could actually just test my 14000′ ability to acclimatize regularly, then once on Elbrus, hang out for a day at the Barrels Huts and go up the first nice day.

In any case, it seems reasonable, based on the past. Now for the future.

What shape am I in? Can I acclimatize? Can I get my “running legs” back in time?

Stay tuned …