Hello Mountain Zoners, this is Vernon Tejas with Alpine Ascents Team ... high on the sides, the flanks, of Mount Elbrus, in the middle of the Caucasus in the southern part of Russia.

Just to bring you up to speed, we've toured all the wonderful sights of St. Petersburg. We took the Midnight Express to Moscow and then we took planes and buses all the way down to the wonderful little town of Turskol in the Baksan Valley and that's where we've been based out of for the last few days. And we finally came up the mountain and are now living in a place called The Barrels.

These barrels are wonderful little places to stay out of the weather, five people to a barrel, it's just more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Today dawned clear and bright and for the first time we got to see the full extent of the Caucas Range, we could even see the notorious Ushba, the Matterhorn of the Caucasus.

And to get acclimatized, the whole crew marched up from 11,000 feet, that's about 3,000-something meters, all the way up to Pastukhov Rocks, 4,500 meters above sea level. We had a great time coming back down; it's a very, very long hike, but I tell you people's spirits are soaring and their legs are happy that we came down the way we did.

What we've got looking at us, staring at us in the eyes is, tomorrow we're hoping to move up to the high camp at the huts, at 4,300 meters above sea level. And the hut is really known as "Le Shack," in the fact that it's a plywood enclosure with not too many amenities, but what do you expect from the highest hotel in Europe.

So please stand by and stick with us and stay tuned for our next report which should be on summit day. So now we'll entertain some P.S.'s, anybody want to say anyhting?

'Shout out' to Anthony and Spruce,' from Cam Bingo. 'Love to Janet, Caroline and Pierre,' from Jean-Michael. 'Hello everybody, we hope everyhting is going well,' love Betsy. 'Jodie, you're my angel,' from Kevin. 'Hey everybody,' from Andrew.

And so with that we'd like to bring this to a close, thanks for tuning in. See you next time. Ciao for now.

— Vern Tejas, Alpine Ascents International Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent